Class Z&X^ 13?^ 
Book if ^ 

DOBELL COLLECTION 



^fi^ ^^^^^ 



SERMONS, 

DOCTRINAL AND PRACTICAL, 



BY THE 

REV. JAMES TWEED, M.A. 

AUTHOR OF HOMILIES ON THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT." 



printeli fox Prftate CCircuIatton, 

BY JAMES TARKER AND CO., OXFORD. 
1871, 



205449 
J 13 



PREFACE. 



HE present little work is intended as a com- 



^ panion to one the author published a year or 
two ago (1867), viz., "Homilies on the Sermon on 
the Mount," which was approved by so many as to 
assure him that it had not been written in vain. 
He was disappointed, however, to find that some 
of his friends were dissatisfied with it, and this, 
as. he thought, for a very strange reason, viz., that 
''to lecture on the Sermon on the Mount was not 
to preach the Gospel." Now our Lord expressly 
declares, (in answer to the inquiries of John the 
Baptist, and in proof that He was " He that should 
come,") tha^ " the poor have the Gospel preached 
to them ;" and when was this, if not when He 
preached the Sermon on the Mount ? And this it 
is probable He preached often : indeed we have it 
in one form in St Matthew "on the Mount,*' in 
another in St. Luke on the Plain % for the varia- 
tions from the former in the latter shew that though 
alike in substance, they are not exactly the same 
discourse. I hope, then, I may assume that the 




^ See Whitby, Macknight, and others. 



PREFACE. 



Sermon on the Mount is the Gospel ; and I beheve 
that the effect intended by it, and which, more per- 
haps than any other portion of Scripture, it is cal- 
culated to produce, is to convince men of sin, which 
is the first step to conversion ; at this effect every 
preacher of the Gospel must aim. If, however, these 
objectors had been content to say that in that Ser- 
mon our Lord did not preach the whole Gospel, I 
should agree with them. For that He did not do 
through His entire ministry, — but that in it He did 
preach a most important part of it, I am fully per- 
suaded ; though much He reserved to be taught 
by the Apostles after they had received the Holy 
Ghost, of w^hich He speaks thus, " I have yet many 
things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them 
now ; but when He, the Spirit of truth, is come, 
He shall guide you into all truths" Now the ad- 
ditional truths which were to be revealed after our 
Saviour's departure, and to supply what He had left 
unrevealed, are contained in the Acts of the Apo- 
stles, and more especially in the Epistles, and these 
are they which form the subject of the present 
sermons. 

A man may innocently prefer one portion of 
Scripture to another, but not to the neglect of any 
part of it, if he desires to be led into all truth. 

, ^ St. John xvi. 12. 13. 



PREFACE. 



V 




«ttttiap>fiM>^ofl«*^ y ot^ion^ihiw » anx^lfe f iji In ''that parti- 
cular dispensation of Providence carrying on by His 
Son and Spirit for the recovery and salvation of 
mankind^," we may well beheve that God has pre- 
served to us in its integrity that precious volume 
which contains the Gospel, and that is not to be 
sought more in one portion than another. The 
Gospel, in fact, is the Scripture, the whole Scrip- 
ture, and nothing but the Scripture. 

« Bp. Butler. 



CONTENTS. 



SERMON I. 

THE INFLUENCE OF THE EVIL SPIRIT . 

SERMON IL 

THE INFLUENCE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT . 

SERMON III. 

SANCTIFICATION IN SPIRIT, SOUL, AND BODY 

SERMON IV. 

ONE GOD, AND ONE MEDIATOR .... 

SERMON V. 

ON THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS, THROUGH THE ATONE 
MENT OF CHRIST 

SERMON VL 

ON RELIGION, PURE AND UNDEFILED . 



SERMON 1. 
Efje influence of tfje 1£&tl <Sptrtt. 



ST. MATTHEW iv. i. 
**Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the 

WILDERNESS, TO BE TEMPTED OF THE DeVIL." 

IT pleased God, when He sent His Son into the 
world to save mankind, to subject Him to all 
those trials and sufferings to which men are liable 
in their passage through life. There are two reasons 
to be assigned for this. It was, in the first place, 
intended that thus He should be an example to us 
of man persevering in obedience, and preserving his 
innocence, in spite of all those snares and seductions 
which it is the ordinary lot of human beings to en- 
counter ; and, secondly, that as the Scripture beauti- 
fully expresses it. He ''might have a feeling of our 
infirmities, being tempted in all points like as we 
are, that so He might be a merciful High-Priest." 
For as He is the person who, by the appointment 
of the Father, dispenses forgiveness to man. His own 
experience of the severity of the struggle necessary 
to maintain innocence, might dispose Him to have 

B 



2 



Sermon I. 



compassion upon those who had failed or fallen in 
that painful contest, and incline Him to forgive them, 
as often as they rose again by repentance. 

Now, among the great impediments to man in 
working out his salvation, the most formidable, per- 
haps, (though the least considered in our days of 
rational religion, as it is called,) is the enmity of the 
evil spirit, who, if the Word of God is to be be- 
lieved, has both malice and power enough to ensnare 
and ruin our souls, if we are not watchful to resist 
him ; whilst it is certain that if we do resist him by 
such means as are afforded to Christians, he cannot 
harm us. 

That our Saviour Christ, therefore, might, as we 
have said, be tempted in all points, like as we are," 
it was necessary that He should be exposed to the 
malicious assaults of Satan. Accordingly, we are 
told in the text that ^' Jesus was led by the Spirit 
into the Avilderness, to be tempted of the Devil." 
Upon this eventful occasion, the Holy Ghost, who 
had so lately descended upon Him, was His guide ; 
that sacred Spirit who never deserts those whom 
God is pleased to try by temptations, unless they 
desert themselves. Jesus then, not now exercising 
His Divinity, but in the humble form and state of 
man, went forth to meet the assaults and wiles of 
him to whom the first man had yielded, and who, 
from that time, had influenced more or less to evil 
all the children of men. 

The Scripture narrative is short, and we are not at 



Tlie Influence of the Evil Spirit. 



3 



liberty to supply too much by our imaginations of 
what is there omitted. When, however, it is said that 
He fasted forty days and forty nights, we may sup- 
pose that He passed this period in painful watchings 
against the attacks of His crafty and malicious foe. 

For the chief end of fasting is to ensure watchful- 
ness and sobriety, to preserve the mind in a proper 
frame for meditation and prayer, and to keep alive 
those energies of the soul which excess and fulness 
is apt to depress. It was, then, by prayer and watch- 
fulness, indicated by fasting, that our Saviour pre- 
pared Himself for the conflict with Satan. 

It is manifested by that long fast how superior 
Christ was to other men in the power which He 
possessed over His appetites. For it would seem 
that so long as God supported His life without food, 
He felt not the desire of it ; or at least, the pleasure 
which nature has annexed to the act of eating was 
not an inducement to Him to break off for it His 
divine meditations, or to relax for a moment from 
His settled watchfulness. Perhaps, too, as the first 
Adam had fallen by indulging a craving for forbidden 
food, it was designed that the second Adam should 
shew that the strictest obedience in this point was 
possible to man. It may be said, that in the practice 
of abstinence there is no great virtue ; yet when we 
see what slaves men generally are to the gross appe- 
tite for food, it seems the mark of no ordinary mind 
to be so indifferent about it, as to take it rather as 
a matter of necessity than of choice or pleasure. 



4 



Sermon I. 



In the history of great men, the quahty of ab- 
stemiousness, if they possessed it, has always been 
recorded to their honour ; and we are told of the 
most virtuous of the heathens that he could say, 
I only eat to live, whilst others live only to eat/' 
And when we consider how degrading the opposite 
vice of gluttony is, how it sinks men to a level with 
the beasts, and, above all, how offensive it is to God, 
being classed with those sins which shut men out 
from heaven, — to recede as far as possible from so 
debasing a quality, to be always temperate in meat 
and drink, and to be capable upon occasion of ab- 
staining wholly from them, is an attainment worthy 
of a man and a Christian : and it was not unworthy 
of Christ to afford us an example of such a virtue. 
So holy men have thought, who, in imitation of their 
Saviour, have made a practice of abstaining from 
food upon particular occasions. 

If we think ourselves not obliged to imitate Christ 
in the practice of fasting, in the principle we surely 
are. Whether we fast or not, we are required at least 
to do that which fasting signifies, to be sober and 
temperate, and to watch unto prayer." 

These reflections being suggested by the fasting 
of our Saviour, we have next to consider His temp- 
tations. They were probably many, but three are 
recorded, by which we may judge of the rest. Our 
Saviour's life had been supported, as we have seen, 
for forty days and forty nights, and now He was 
permitted to feel the cravings of hunger. Upon this, 



The Influence of the Evil Spirit. 



5 



Satan took occasion to tempt Him. He presented 
himself to Him, and in words which implied a doubt 
whether He was the divine personage He assumed 
to be, he bade Him exercise the power which He 
possessed to procure Himself food : If Thou be the 
Son of God, command that these stones be made 
bread." Christ who, upon another occasion, declared 
that He had bread to eat which men knew not of 
that " it was His meat and drink to do the will of 
God answered with a text from Scripture : It is 
written, man shall not live by bread alone, but by 
every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of 
God." These words were first spoken when the 
Israelites were fed with manna sent from heaven ; 
and, as applied by Christ, might either signify that 
to obey the will of God was the best nourishment 
of the good man, or that God could support life by 
a word, as Christ's life had been supported without 
the use of outward means, of the ordinary supplies 
of food. It would seem that throughout this whole 
trial Christ was not to work a miracle on His own 
behalf, but was to rely upon God. He was, in fact, 
to do what man might do in the same situation 
without offence. He possessed, indeed, the power of 
turning stones into bread, as Satan suggested ; and 
the sufferings of hunger which He felt, would have 
naturally urged Him to exert it. But as this was 
not the will of His heavenly Father, though nature 
craved the food. He was not to be tempted to pro- 
cure it by the means which the Evil Spirit proposed. 



6 



Sermon I. 



The extreme case of wanting bread is, we trust, so 
uncommon, that it is hardly necessary to say that 
here the example of our Saviour shews that not even 
hunger ma}' tempt us to procure it by forbidden 
means. But when some mode of subsistence presents 
itself, which would relieve our present distress, but 
which is either an unlawful calling, or in some way 
or other wrong in itself, this bears a sufficient re- 
semblance to the circumstances of our Lord, and in 
this we may learn from Him to resist the temptation. 
In no case will the Christian think himself justified 
in getting his bread by such means as are forbidden 
by God. If in such trying moments you can imitate 
A'our Saviour, can rely upon your heavenly Father, 
and flee from the hidden things of dishonesty, then 
are you followers of Christ, and "have overcome the 
Avicked one/' and God who has tried you, and in 
whom you have trusted, will at length relieve and 
finally reward you. 

The next temptation was altogether of a different 
kind. For Satan, perceiving from the confidence 
which Jesus had reposed in God that He was not to 
be tempted to anything which might imply distrust 
or disobedience, now hoped through this very con- 
fidence to ensnare Him, by seducing Him into the 
sin of presumption, which, as it is only a high and 
undue degree of confidence, is not unfrequently the 
fault of religious minds. He placed Him on a pin- 
nacle of the Temple, and insinuating, as before, a 
doubt of His being the Son of God, he bade Him, 



The Influence of the Evil Spirit. 



7 



if He were indeed that divine personage, "cast Him- 
self down." For," (said he,) " the very Scriptures 
which Thou hast quoted, have promised that He shall 
give His angels charge concerning Thee, and in their 
hands shall they bear Thee up, lest at any time Thou 
dash Thy foot against a stone." This text from the 
Psalms had a prophetic reference to the Son of God. 
Our Saviour's reHance upon God was perfect ; but 
it was far removed from that rash unwarranted ex- 
pectation, that God is bound by His promises to 
preserve us, at all events, when we carelessly throw 
ourselves into danger. God has, indeed, engaged to 
protect us with His special care in all dangers to 
which we are exposed in the course of our duty ; 
and this should be a strong encouragement to us to 
persevere in that course in the face of danger and 
difficulty, when these are unavoidable ; but to tempt 
Providence, as it is well termed, to put His care of 
us, as it were, to the proof, — to run unnecessary 
hazards, presuming upon His protection, is mani- 
festly wrong and sinful. This the tempter saw, yet 
it seemed a sin of that peculiar kind, to which one 
who had so strong a faith in divine Providence 
might naturally consent. Our Saviour answered, as 
before, with a text of Scripture : " It is written. Thou 
shalt not tempt the Lord thy God ;" where the word 
'tempt' implies, to make trial of, or put to the proof: 
as if He had said, "God has promised Me His pro- 
tection, and when My situation requires it. He will 
rescue Me from danger. But shall I then do this 



8 



Sermon I. 



rash act, to make trial whether He will or not ? 
Surely He is not one whom we may lightly put to 
the proof. There is sin in what thou hast suggested ; 
I see it, and consent not to it." 

From this answer of our Saviour, we learn that 
though there are various promises in Scripture of the 
help which God will vouchsafe to righteous men, of 
assistance in trouble, and deliverance from danger, 
without w^hich, a state so exposed as ours to trouble 
and danger, would be intolerable ; yet, are we not 
authorized so wholly to throw ourselves upon Him, 
as to neglect those very means by which probably 
He designs to save us } Should the sick man under 
a dangerous disorder refuse the human assistance 
to which, under the blessing of God, diseases yield, 
and trust to the special promise that " the prayer of 
faith shall heal the sick," w^ould not this be to cast 
himself down in the hope that angels would bear 
him up. So, if he who is suffering from want and 
poverty, whilst he has the enjoyment of health and 
strength, should refuse to labour, presuming that God 
would support him without it, he would carry his 
confidence to a blamable excess, and would give 
occasion to the adversary to shake his faith. For 
when he did not find that extraordinary support 
which God never promised to those who can, and 
will not, help themselves, Satan would soon suggest 
to him that God was less gracious than he had be- 
lieved, and from trusting unwarrantably, he would 
fall into the more dangerous error of not trusting in 



The Influence of the Evil Spirit. 



9 



God at all. As, therefore, Christ at His first temp- 
tation taught us so to rely upon God as never to use 
unlawful means to save or support ourselves ; so, in 
the second. He teaches us to beware of presumption, 
not to place ourselves unnecessarily in circumstances 
of danger, expecting extraordinary interpositions, 
when by common and lawful means of precaution 
we may keep ourselves from harm. In short, we are 
always to trust but never to tempt the providence 
of God. 

The third temptation was of a grander and more 
striking kind, and strongly fitted to affect a great 
and lofty mind, unless its natural aspirings were 
checked by the fear of God and a sense of religion. 
"Again the Devil taketh Him up into an exceeding 
high mountain, and sheweth Him all the kingdoms 
of the world, and the glory of them ; and saith unto 
Him, All these things will I give Thee, if Thou wilt 
fall down and worship me." Thus was not only 
a view afforded to our Saviour, but an offer made 
to Him, of all those splendid objects for which kings 
and conquerors have embroiled the world. The Evil 
Spirit, who tem.pted Jesus with these magnificent 
prospects, is styled in Scripture the Prince of this 
world. What can this mean but that he has, in 
some way or other, much sway over the affairs of it, 
though unquestionably under the control of Provi- 
dence ; and that he is permitted to instigate those 
characters, in whom the love of power and wealth 
prevail over justice and humanity, to those lawless 



10 



Sermon I. 



\ 



acts by which they are attainable. For the evil 
passions of men render them subservient to his will. 
Thus the ambitious and rapacious become his agents, 
and the misery, wrongs, and crimes, which are pro- 
duced by their means, bear witness to his malignant 
influence over human affairs. 

But the Prince of this world " had no part in our 
Saviour. Power and pomp, the possession of king- 
doms and ^^the glories of them/' were not objects of 
desire to the meek and lowly Jesus. He came indeed 
to establish a kingdom, but it was '^not of this 
world nor, for all that the Prince of this world" 
could bestow, would He listen for a moment to his 
impious offer. But when this bold spirit proposed 
that He should do him homage. He repelled him 
instantly with indignation, and rebuked him sternly : 
" Get thee hence, Satan ; for it is written. Thou shalt 
worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou 
serve." And now the tempter was abashed ; he had 
failed in every assault, he was foiled in all his 
wiles and having no hope of succeeding after so 
signal a defeat, he desisted for the present from any 
further attempt. 

From this last trial we learn to be upon our guard 
when tempting proposals are made to us, by which 
our pride, our vanity, or our covetousness would be 
gratified. If you, my brethren, are promised a re- 
ward for a wicked action, if a situation is offered to 
you if you will perform some bad service, if you are 
bribed by money to consent to sin, you are, as far 



Tlie InfliLence of tlie Evil Spirit. 1 1 

as your station admits, in the circumstances of this 
last temptation. Satan is too wise to offer to men 
in the ordinary paths of Hfe kingdoms and glories. 
But if he sees in you an inordinate desire of any 
possession, prize, or distinction, not to be obtained 
by fair means, he will tempt you to have recourse to 
bad and base ways to gain them, and if you yield to 
them, you do in effect fall down and worship him." 
Whatever, therefore, be the objects of your desire, 
if you cannot compass your ends by honest, just, 
charitable, and religious means, you must abandon 
them; your service to God requires this, and Him 
only shalt thou serve." 

After the departure of the Evil Spirit, we read that 
angels came and ministered unto Jesus." They 
supplied Him with food, of which He stood so much 
in need, and by their heavenly converse relieved His 
exhausted spirit. Something like this you will ex- 
perience when you have overcome temptation. Relief 
will be afforded you, and your souls will be com- 
forted and supported. We Christians live under the 
ministry of angels, and, though we see them not, we 
are encouraged to believe that there are times when 
they protect our bodies, strengthen our minds, and 
comfort our spirits. 

Such is the account of the temptation of our Sa- 
viour, and some of the reflections that it suggests. 
And though the subject has been laid before you in 
the simplest manner and the plainest language which 



12 



Sermon I. 



it will admit, in order to render it generally instruc- 
tive, let it not be supposed that there is nothing of 
dignity or importance in the event which has been 
considered. It is, indeed, far otherwise. What here 
occurred was a spectacle which " the angels might 
desire to look into and those who ministered to 
Jesus probably watched its issue with intense anxiety. 
Nothing can be imagined more momentous than such 
a conflict ; w^hether we consider the persons engaged 
in it, or the opposite ends at which they aimed. For 
it was a conflict between the Son of God and the 
Spirit of Evil ; a conflict, not of brutal force, but of 
spiritual wisdom and infernal cunning. On the one 
side was he who, from the creation of man, had 
laboured to accompHsh the ruin of our race ; on the 
other. He who, from the foundation of the world, had 
foreseen our ruin, and had purposed to reverse it. 
Here was an endeavour on the part of Satan to 
tempt Him to evil who came to save mankind, in 
which, could he have succeeded, Christ Himself might 
not have been our Redeemer. Here, on the part of 
Jesus, was a display of that inward power by which 
He would Himself resist, and enable His faithful 
followers to resist, all the assaults of their spiritual 
enemy. Here Christ, as man, fulfilled for us that 
perfect righteousness, which must be fulfilled in order 
that God might be reconciled to human creatures. 
Here Satan was taught how limited would be his 
future victories over our race, and that all who would 



Tlie Iiijitience of the Evil Spirit. 



13 



enrol themselves under the banners of his great con- 
queror, might defy his power in life, and would be 
placed beyond it after death. 

Are we not, then, interested, deeply interested, in 
this triumph of our Saviour over temptation. Yet 
let us remember that we, whilst we live, have the 
same conflict to maintain. Brethren, if you had a 
powerful enemy, who, when you were not suspecting 
it, was undermining you, and trying to bring you 
under the displeasure of your best friend, you would 
wish to be warned against his attempts. It is, then, 
friendly to remind you that you have an enemy of 
this malicious kind, who tempts you to evil, then 
accuses you of it, and sets you at enmity with God. 
In the temptations of Christ, you have seen how in- 
sidious are his attacks. That temptation was adapted 
to the character and circumstances of Christ, but he 
can adapt his temptations to the different situations 
and dispositions of every one of us. He varies his 
devices according to the various weaknesses of our 
natures. The timid he affrights from their duty by 
magnifying its difficulties, he encourages the bold to 
evil by removing the terrors of futurity. He tempts 
the poor to impatience, discontent, and dishonesty, 
and the rich to luxury, pride, and self-indulgence. 
To the young he suggests that it is natural, and 
therefore innocent, to gratify their passions, and so 
they become giddy and wanton ; and in the cares 
of the world" and "the deceitfulness of riches" he 
spreads his snares for those of maturer years. It is 



14 



Sermo7i L 



he vrho hardens the heart of those who have lost the 
fear of God, and makes them slow to forgive and in- 
capable of charity, and fills them with envy, rage, 
hatred, and all his own malignant passions. It is 
he who steals insensibly away our better principles, 
estranging us from the love of God, and rendering 
us indifferent or averse to His service. He, in the 
case of careless hearers, ''taketh the Word of God 
out of their hearts, and rendereth it unfruitful," by 
inclining them to disbelieve it. When our darling 
sins beset us, he repeats that original lie, by which 
he ruined our first parents : for this thou shalt 
not die ;" God will not execute His threatenings 
and thus we sin, and yet trust to escape its punish- 
ment. In these difi"erent ways he assails us all, and 
thus he would prepare us as fit inmates for those dis- 
mal regions of outer darkness which are his proper 
kingdom, where it is his horrid pleasure to associate 
with himself in misery beyond reprieve all who have 
forsaken the paths of religion, and have loved wicked- 
ness more than goodness. 

Thanks, then, be to our God and Saviour, who 
would shield us from his poAver. For we have seen, 
in the example of Jesus, that man may successfully 
resist him — not indeed in his own strength, but in the 
grace and might of his Lord. He who had power to 
overcome him, gives us of the same pov/er in propor- 
tion to our needs, that we may overcome him too. 
" For he that is begotten of God keepeth himself, and 
that wicked one toucheth him not." Hence it is not 



The hifliierice of the Evil Spirit. 



15 



said in vain to Christians, Resist the Devil, and he 
will flee from you." But how shall we resist him ? 
Even as our Lord resisted him ; by prayer and watch- 
fulness and the Word of God, opposing to the evil 
thoughts which he raises within us the plain texts 
of Scripture which suggest better things, and ever 
listening to the voice of that Holy Spirit who is 
about us and within us. For though Satan is " as 
the strong man armed," that Spirit is stronger than 
he, and can disarm him. " For greater is He that is in 
us, than he that is in the world through Him we 
are able to overcome the Evil One, and thus every 
earnest Christian may triumph over temptation and 
the tempter, even as our Lord triumphed over both 
the one and the other. 



SERMON II. 
K]}t Influence of tljt ^Mv Spirit 



ST. LUKE xi. 13. 

If ye then, being evil, know how to give good 
gifts unto your children, how much more shall 
your heavenly father give ^ the holy spirit to 

THEM THAT ASK HiM 

IT is a common reflection with men who are httle 
disposed to undertake that work, above all others 
the most important — the work of their salvation — 
that, to point out and explain the duties of religion is 
a very easy matter ; but that to perform them is an- 
other thing. It would be well, they complain, if they 
who exhort us to this strict course would at the same 
time shew us how we can pursue it. We do not doubt 
that the mode of life they recommend is good ; but 
will they inform us how we may bring ourselves to 
embrace it, so opposite as it is to our past practices 
and our present habits, so contrary to our dispositions, 
so foreign to our nature. Lest any of you, my bre- 
thren, when we set before you the sum of Christian 

" The original is "a holy spirit," — not the person, but His holy in- 
fluence. 



The Influence of the Holy Spirit. 



X7 



duty, shewing you that thus and thus it becomes you 
to Hve and to keep in view the kingdom of God — lest 
any of you should adopt the notion that it is impos- 
sible for you to lead this strictly moral and religious 
course, which is required of you, it will be the object 
of the present discourse to prove that you have, in the 
promises of Scripture, an assurance of such strength 
as will enable you to fulfil the will of God. 

It is this strength — which God gives to Christians 
for the purpose of making them holy, and by that 
means fitting them for heaven — which divines call 
Grace. 

The promise of this grace is contained in our text. 
The Spirit of God holds this office in furthering our 
salvation, that, whereas by our natural powers we are 
not capable of loving God, and of keeping His com- 
mandments, He, by his influence upon our minds and 
souls, gives us that sufficiency which nature wants. 

Such is the doctrine of spiritual assistance, one of 
the most important that distinguishes the religion of 
Christ. 

It is so obvious to every thinking mind, that perfect 
happiness in the presence of God, which is the idea 
the Scriptures give of heaven, can never be attained 
or enjoyed by any but the good, and so evident tha^ 
the majority are not good ; that if there were not 
a promise of some powerful influence, by which they 
who are now far from goodness may be converted to 
it, these expressions which intimate the willingness of 
God to receive all men into His kingdom would seem 

c 



i8 



Serino7t IL 



like mockery. Whatever objections speculative men 
may raise to that article of our Church which asserts 
that there is in us an original propensity to sin, the 
history of civilized and of barbarous men in every age, 
nay, the private experience of every individual, attest 
the general prevalence of vice and crime, of practices 
which reason and religion condemn, of evil dispositions, 
of violent and licentious passions. In other matters, 
when things left to themselves take almost universally 
a certain course, w^e are wont to ascribe it to an ori- 
ginal tendency in the things themselves ; when, there- 
fore, we say that men are naturally disposed to sin, we 
say no more than is necessary to account for the fact 
that not only mankind are generally wicked, but that 
not a single person can be found who is altogether 
free from sin. It is not necessary to assert that this 
tendency is irresistible, or that we are born under 
a necessity of being wicked ; but considering our na- 
tural indisposition to goodness, and the corrupt ex- 
amples of those around us, the probability that we 
shall take a wrong turn is always fearfully great. This 
is true even of that correct and steady conduct w^hich 
man approves in his fellow-man. But we must be 
well aware that the righteousness which God requires 
is of a far more exalted kind, and includes many vir- 
tues which the world does not exact of us, as meek- 
ness, forgiveness of injuries, humility, purity of heart, 
and frequent self-denial. For it is not more from the 
sinfulness of our own nature than from the strictness 
of the law of God, and its high demands upon us, that 



The Inflimice of the Holy Spirit. 19 

the difficulty arises, of leading such a life as will 
entitle us to^ reward. Placed in a world where ini- 
quity 'abounds, with much of weakness and of corrup- 
tion in ourselves, we are required to perfect holiness 
in the fear of God and can we doubt the necessity 
of divine grace ? Surely not. When, therefore, in the 
text, our Saviour, after delivering some of His purest, 
strictest precepts, promised to His hearers that the 
Holy Spirit should be given to enable them — He met 
a want which they must have felt, a want which all 
must yet feel, who consider what men naturally are, 
and that obedience to the divine laws is yet required 
of them. 

Further, if we consider what it is that God pro- 
posed to effect by the plan of our redemption in 
Christ Jesus — that it was His purpose to restore us 
from a state of misery, the consequence of sin, to 
happiness, the effect of righteousness and true holi- 
ness — we shall perceive that such a plan would have 
been incomplete, had not the promise of spiritual 
assistance formed a part of it. We may observe 
that our Lord does not deliver this doctrine as if it 
were anything new. He tells His disciples that it 
was as natural to expect that God would bestow 
a Holy Spirit upon those who asked it, as that a parent 
should listen to the cravings of his children for their 
ordinary food. That endeavours after holiness should 
be assisted by the Spirit of God, was a doctrine to 
which the readers of the Old Testament were not 



20 



Sermon II. 



strangers. When God, before the Flood, was said to 
have declared that His Spirit should not always 
strive with man/' they must have understood that 
commonly He did strive with him. We find the 
Psalmist repeatedly praying for the Spirit : " Cast 
me not away from Thy presence, and take not Thy 
Holy Spirit from me." The wiser heathens, too, 
were sensible of the necessity of divine assistance. 
They held that no man was ever great without 
a divine inspiration," and that there was no good 
mind without God and their prayers to the Deity 
to endue them with virtue, shew that they considered 
it to be a divine gift ; nay, we are told that the poor 
child of nature, the untutored savage, holds that the 
great Spirit puts good into their hearts." It is 
strange, therefore, that the unbeliever should cavil 
at the doctrine of grace, on the ground that virtue, 
to entitle us to reward, must be our own attainment, 
and not a gift. For suppose that we could become 
virtuous by our natural powers, these powers we did 
not originally bestow upon ourselves. Our natural 
strength was, at least, the gift of our Creator, and 
the virtue attained by it must in the end be referred 
to Him. And the case is the same with the powers 
bestowed upon the Christian by the Spirit of God. 
For His grace is not given that we may not work ; 
it is given that we may work effectually. Work 
out your own salvation with fear and trembling." 
Why } because " it is God which worketh in you both 



The Influence of the Holy Spirit. 



21 



to will and to do." Thus our works are our own, in 
that we perform them ; yet not our own, because the 
power was wrought in us by God. The divine vir- 
tues required of a Christian being more than unas- 
sisted nature can attain, the conquest over sin harder 
than of ourselves we can achieve, spiritual might is 
superadded to our natural powers ; yet the right use 
of this grace God may be expected to reward ; and 
accordingly we find that our works will be rewarded, 
though as a matter of favour rather than of merit. 
We have seen that the Jews believed in the doctrine 
of the Holy Spirit strengthening and assisting men, 
and that the heathen thought it reasonable to pray 
for divine help. But the Christian, on this as on 
other subjects, is enlightened with a more enlarged 
knowledge. To him it has been revealed that the 
Holy Spirit, received from the Father by the Son, 
and sent by the Son as a gracious boon to all be- 
lievers, is that Spirit by whose influence we are sanc- 
tified. In His Name we are baptized, and baptized 
that we may receive Him, for He is promised only 
to those who are baptized, which is one reason why 
Baptism is administered to children, that they may 
be sanctified, as it were, from the womb. 

Thus from the earliest period, as soon as we are 
capable of moral impressions, this gracious Spirit, 
co-operating with the Christian instruction we re- 
ceive, may be expected to excite us to good, to 
check the evil propensities that stir within us, and 
dispose us to that right and perfect way, which is 



22 



Sermon IL 



acceptable to God. Thus we are restrained and 
retarded in that progress to evil which we are too 
apt of ourselves to take ; nay, even when we have 
become wicked, as most of us do, He strives with 
us, to bring us to repentance. We are free, in- 
deed, to take the wrong path if we choose it ; 
for He does not force our wills, yet He exercises 
over them the mild influence of sacred suggestions, 
of inward checks and admonitions, so that perhaps 
no Christian ever pursued a wrong course without 
being conscious that he did it in opposition to re- 
straints from within, to which, had he listened, he 
might have returned to a right course. Thus He 
performs the part of a moral friend or monitor, w^ho, 
anxious for our best interests, is ever prompting us 
to duty, ever dissuading us from evil, and who, even 
when we strav, does not abandon us whilst there is 
a hope of our reformation. In this way, perhaps, 
the few righteous persons, who need no repentance," 
are led from the beginning to the end of their Chris- 
tian course in the way of salvation. 

But the Holy Spirit does not only encourage us, 
He enables us to do the will of God. We have seen 
how little power we have of ourselves to keep the 
commandments, but this inability ceases under His 
blessed influence. To those who are weak He com- 
municates strength, and life to those who Avere " dead 
in trespasses and sins." Hence, He is said so fre- 
quently in Scripture to quicken, and hence He is 
styled, in the Nicene Creed, ''the Lord and Giver of 



The hifliience of the Holy Spirit, 



23 



life.'' How this is effected ^ it is not for us to de- 
termine. But as He is represented to be ever-present 
with us, having access to our minds and souls, He 
can operate upon them as He sees occasion. He 
convinces us that we are evil, and if we are willing 
to be reformed. He converts us to goodness. He 
communicates His holy influence to us. Touched^ 
by the Spirit of God, our spirit throws off its im- 
purities, and sanctification is begun. Still, many in- 
firmities of the flesh remain. The desires arising 
from our animal nature are not extinguished, but 
they have no longer dominion over us. Instead of 
delighting, as formerly, to gratify them, we are 
ashamed and grieved as often as they solicit us. 
So the evil passions that are called forth by our in- 
tercourse with the world, and with our fellow-men, 
as pride and envy, hatred and malice, are felt, but 
not indulged. They do not break forth into word 
or action. Like prisoners kept under watch and 
ward, they are rendered powerless. A better prin- 
ciple within is counteracting their malignity. Thus, 
by the divine influence we are continually renewed 
in the spirit of our minds." Our aversion to holiness 
is overcome. The hunger and thirst after righteous- 
ness is excited, we become ^'spiritually-minded," 

^ '* We have too little knowledge of the substance of the Spirit to get 
a clear sight of such penetration of spirit by spirit." — Olshausen^ Romans 
viii. 10, II. 

Spirits are not finely touched 
But to fine issues." — Shakespeare^ Measure for Measure.''^ 



24 



Ser?non 11. 



''the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts," and 
charity has its perfect work within us. 

Such are the effects which may be expected from 
the gift of the Spirit, and it is bestowed on purpose 
to produce them. That it does produce them in 
many instances is unquestionable, and that it does 
not produce them in more is easily to be accounted 
for. For the Spirit acts with us, and not in spite 
of us. We may resist, and too often do resist, the 
good motions which He kindles within us ; we grieve 
Him by our sins, we repel Him by our indifference, 
in fact, we qu&nch the Spirit," for He does not act 
irresistibly. He treats us like reasonable beings, He 
gently leads, and does not violently drive us. For 
goodness may be implanted in a willing nature, but 
cannot be forced upon an unwilling one. 

Perhaps, too, this Spirit operates upon all ordinary 
Christians more than appears : for spirituality doubt- 
less admits of degrees. "To him that hath," saith 
our Lord, '' shall be given, and he shall have more 
abundantly." Again, God giveth more grace ;" and 
Unto every one of us is given grace according to the 
measure of the gift of Christ," and holy men are said 
to ''go on from strength to strength." Hence, it 
seems uncharitable, not to say presumptuous, to pro- 
nounce of any Christian that "he has not a spark of 
the Spirit within him." Those whom the Apostle 
Jude condemns as "not having the Spirit" were the 
vilest of men, as we find from the terms in which he 
characterizes them, and were probably not members 



The Influence of the Holy Spirit. 



25 



of the Christian Church. To have the Spirit, indeed, 
is the common privilege of all who have been bap- 
tized unto Christ, but to be led or influenced habi- 
tually by the Spirit is the mark of the faithful Chris- 
tian only. The Spirit, however, though ever-present 
with us, does not work effectually upon us, if we do 
not implore His aid, and use the appointed means. 
For though he is not restricted and confined to the 
use of means, yet He does ordinarily work by means. 
These means are prayer, and religious exercises in 
general ; the Sacraments, and hearing or reading 
the Word of God. The great neglect of these, will 
account for the want of spiritual-mindedness in those 
who are not otherwise wicked. And perhaps in pro- 
portion as these means are used, we shall perceive 
the influence of the Spirit manifested " by His fruits, 
in all goodness, and righteousness, and truth.'' 

It is certain, then, that grace may be obtained ; but 
we may be too fond of our sins, too indolent, or too 
proud to ask it. Prayer is a serious and solemn 
duty ; we are not disposed to seriousness and so- 
lemnity, therefore we neglect prayer. Even attend- 
ance upon public worship is a tedious, heavy busi- 
ness, which we observe for decency's sake ; but our 
heart is not in it, and with going to church ends 
our religion, we do not bring it away with us. Re- 
ligious reading is grave and dull, and we have no 
taste for it. And though the Bible is not a dull 
book, it is so strict, so severe, so plain with us ; it 
smites our consciences so sharply, it makes us so 



26 



Ser)}ion 11. 



dissatisfied with ourselves, that we cannot resoh'e to 
read it with attention. The Holy Communion, too, 
supposes that we examine our ways, and form reso- 
lutions of amendment ; perhaps we are satisfied with 
ourselves^ we do not think our few faults need be 
amended^ or we know that we are not what we ought 
to be, but cannot resolve to alter, therefore we are dis- 
inclined to partake of the Holy Communion. Xow, 
my brethren, if the Spirit is a gift which we are to 
use and improve, and if the object of this gift is to 
sanctify us, it is no wonder, whilst we neglect the 
means of sanctification. if to us the grace of God is 
given in vain ;"' we do not, as we ought, ''stir up the 
gift of God that is within us." 

Though prayer only is mentioned in the text as 
necessar}' to obtain the promised spiritual assistance, 
of course all other means by which we may '' grovv' in 
grace" are to be employed. Indeed, if we can once 
resolve, and that seriously, to ask the Holy Spirit, 
we shall not rest there. The Spirit Himself, when 
received in answer to our prayers, will urge us to 
further duties tending to sanctification. He will 
make us delight in the ser\-ice of God, and in all 
religious acts and exercises. He will excite in us 
a strong desire to '' search the Scriptures," in which 
we have so deep an interest ; He will make us wish 
to receive the Holy Communion, where the pledges 
of God's mercy in Christ are exhibited. Under His 
influence, self-examination will be duly practised, 
and a constant attention to our characters will be 



The Influence of the Holy Spirit. 



27 



awakened. We shall inquire into our sins, that we 
may overcome them ; and mark our deficiencies in 
grace, that we may supply them. 

Thus you see how this doctrine of spiritual in- 
fluence is entirely practical, tending certainly to en- 
lighten your minds, but, still more, to change and 
amend your hearts. 

The state in which men are best fitted to profit by 
this doctrine is a very common one : it is when they 
are not wholly unconcerned about their salvation, 
but ignorant of the means by which they may obtain 
it. They know well enough that they are very unfit 
for heaven ; they are aware that the world has too 
strong a hold on them ; that they are habitually 
addicted to some sins, and are frequently falling into 
others : still they intend to reform ; they mean to 
give up this and that practice, which in their hearts 
they condemn ; they mean to be less worldly and 
more religious ; but they do not in fact become so. 
And why Because they cannot, of themselves they 
cannot, and they know not their want of spiritual 
assistance. But if they could sanctify themselves 
the Spirit would not have been promised, for it would 
not have been necessary. Yet consider, can the bad 
heart change itself.^ or will the world change it for 
the better } By what process shall persons of proud 
minds, of morose tempers, and selfish dispositions be 
rendered meek, and humble, and charitable } What 
shall make a covetous soul think more of heavenly 
treasure than of earthly gain 1 How shall loose men 



28 



Sermon II. 



or unsteady women be brought to keep themselves 
pure ? By what means can the lovers of pleasure, 
creatures giddy, impatient of thought, and indisposed 
to devotion, be induced to think of saving their souls, 
and take delight in the services of religion ? Yet if 
these things are not practicable, many of you must 
perish in your sins. But they are, happily for you, 
they are practicable ; and yet only practicable, be- 
cause of this promise that " God will give a Holy 
Spirit to them that ask it." When next, therefore, 
you resolve against this or that sin, which you fear 
will be your ruin, forget not to ask that spiritual 
assistance, without which you can never overcome 
it. If ever that good frame of mind returns, in 
which you have determined, hitherto in vain, that 
you will no more be the slave of lust, of evil pas- 
sion, of the love of gain ; that you will endeavour 
to attain those good qualities which you want, and 
without which you cannot be saved ; to these re- 
solutions, the weak sparks of grace, which devotion 
would kindle into a holy flame, add fervent prayer 
for the gift of the Holy Spirit, which, as you see, 
your Saviour has promised. So, when next you meet 
the object that tempts you, you will find its power 
over you lessened ; when your favourite sin besets 
you, you will feel it strongly checked from within, 
you will become disposed to virtues to which you 
were before a stranger, and prompted to duties which 
you now never think of performing. Even the ties 
which bind you to a sinful world will, under this 



The Influence of the Holy Spirit, 



29 



divine influence, be relaxed, and lose imperceptibly 
their hold upon you, as the chains fell from the 
Apostle at the touch of the angel of God. Thus, 
having the divine power engaged on your side, you 
will be able to overcome the temptations of the Evil 
One. In short, your state will be like that which the 
beloved disciple has described : " Whoever is be- 
gotten of God keepeth himself, and that wicked one 
toucheth him not, and he doth not commit sin, for 
his seed remaineth in him, and he cannot sin because 
he is born of God.'* The divine seed here spoken of 
is that spiritual influence which, when it prevails over 
us, makes us as really averse to sin, as, in a state of 
nature, we should be inclined to it. 

Is there, then, my Christian brethren, such a spiri- 
tual influence to be obtained } You have seen that 
it is reasonable to expect it ; that it is what man 
needs in order that he may struggle effectually with 
a corrupt nature in an evil world ; what God, there- 
fore, must be disposed to grant ; and accordingly we 
read that it is the promise of God to human prayers. 
And if it be desirable to be delivered from the bond- 
age of sin " into the glorious liberty of the children 
of God to be purified from a state of corruption, 
the consequence of which would be everlasting per- 
dition ; to be filled with those " fruits of the Spirit — 
love, joy, peace, faithfulness, temperance, meekness, 
patience," which are at once the purest source of 
present happiness, and the pledge of our acceptance 
with God ; if, to have a lively hope of heaven, and to 



30 



Sermon IL 



be enriched with the graces that may fit us for it ; 
if all this be desirable, then remember continually, 
and in the hour of temptation, more abundantly to 
ask, in the Xame of Christ, the gift of His Holy 
Spirit, and to yield yourselves without reserve to His 
sanctifying influence. 



SERMON III. 
cSancttficatton m &^ixit, Soul, anft Bo&g. 



I THESS. V. 23. 

'^The very God of peace sanctify you wholly, and 
I PRAY God your whole spirit, and soul, and body, 

BE preserved blameless UNTO THE COMING OF OUR 

Lord Jesus Christ." 

THERE is something awful in the very name of 
God ; it inspires reverence not unmixed with 
fear ; and, as " fear hath torment," to mitigate this, 
the Apostle generally adds to that name some 
quality of an amiable kind, as the God of love," 
''the God of mercy," and, in our text, "the God of 
peace." 

It is not without reason that God is here and else- 
where styled *' the God of peace," because from Him 
alone can true peace, inward peace, be expected. 
Hence we speak of Him, in our Morning Service, as 
the Author of peace ;" and in the Evening, beseech 
Him "to give us that peace which the world cannot 
give." In the Apostle's benediction "the peace of 
God" is desired for us ; and in a beautiful passage in 
the prophet Isaiah He is thus addressed, "Thou wilt 
keep Him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on 
Thee ;" and again, " Lord, Thou wilt ordain peace 
for us." Now, in the state of the Thessalonians, there 



32 



Sermo7i III. 



was good reason for invoking the God of peace 
they were suffering persecution from their country- 
men ; their souls, therefore, were agitated, anxious, 
and uneasy. They were new converts, a small band 
of Christians amidst a host of heathens. Though 
religion disposes men to be peaceable, the world will 
not let them be at peace. ^'The world lieth in 
wickedness," and of course hates those who have 
renounced its wicked ways. " Because ye are not 
of the world," said our Lord to His disciples, ^^there- 
fore the world hateth you." But to be hated by the 
world is a sore trial. In such a state, therefore, if 
they could at all find repose, it must be from the 
God of peace." But peace within would compen- 
sate them for all their sufferings from without, and 
this peace the consolations of the Holy Spirit would 
produce in them. 

Now the office of the Holy Spirit is to sanctify, 
and till men are sanctified, this peace is not imparted 
to them. You see, therefore, with what propriety 
"the God of peace" is invoked to sanctify them ; and, 
as a partial and imperfect sanctification would not 
ensure peace, ''to sanctify them wholly," in every 
part of their nature. 

It is common to say that man consists of soul 
and body; that besides that outward frame, which can 
be seen and felt, he has a precious part within %" — 

* " I've a precious part within, 

Which the world hath never seen." 

Watts s Hover Lyrkce. 



Sanctification in Spirit^ Soul, and Body, 33 



a soul that is not visible, which dwells in the body 
while he lives, and departs from it when he dies, to 
go to a place prepared for it ; whence, by death, we 
understand the separation of the soul from the body. 
All this is undoubtedly true, but it is not the whole 
truth. For though, when the Scripture speaks popu- 
larly and familiarly of man, it often only mentions 
soul and body ; when it speaks more accurately and 
precisely, it includes the spirit also ; as here St. Paul, 
who, as an inspired Apostle, knew the nature of man 
most profoundly, shews us in the text that we consist 
of "spirit, soul, and body." For having prayed that 
God would " sanctify them wholly," as if to express 
his meaning more fully, he adds, "and may your 
whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless 
the latter part of the text being only an enlarge- 
ment of the former. 

What the body is, the solid substance that we 
bear about with us, we all know, and need not here 
dwell upon it. But how shall we distinguish the 
spirit and the soul } A little reflection on our own 
nature would shew us that they are not the same 
thing, though in common speech they are frequently 
confounded. An acute and learned commentator ob- 
serves on this passage: — "The Apostle here justifies 
the ancient and true philosophy, that man is com- 
pounded of three different parts," and he quotes one 
of the old philosopher's sayings, "the three con- 
stituent parts of man are the body, soul, and mind ^" 

^ Whitby. See his note on this text. 
D 



34 



Sermon III. 



The spirit, then, is the mind, or understanding ; that 
part of us by which we think, reflect, and reason. 

\Miat man knoweth the things of a man, save the 
spirit of a man that is in him ?" That which knows, 
then, is the spirit, the same as the mind. The soul 
is the seat of the will, the feelings^ passions, and 
affections, the same as the heart. It is with the 
soul that we hope and fear, love and hate^ grieve 
and rejoice ^ 

It is worthy of observation here that the Apostle, 
in his mention of spirit, and soul, and body,'' ob- 
serves this order, placing the spirit first and the body 
last. For the spirit is the highest faculty, and in the 
process of sanctification it is the first on which the 
Holy Spirit operates. Sanctify them with Thy 
truth," saith our Lord, praying for His x-\postles ; 

Thy Word is truth." But this sanctification of the 
spirit may take place, and yet the soul remain un- 
sanctified. Such was the case with Judas. As a 
constant hearer of the instructions of his divine 
ilaster, he vras as much enlightened in his spirit 
or mind as the rest of the Apostles ; but his soul 
was not converted. It continued corrupted by the 
love of filthy lucre," that sordid passion which led 
him to betray his Lord for a paltry sum of money. 

^ '■' Man is a complex being, rpiuep-qs viroarao-Ls, a tripartite person, or 
a compound creature, made up of three distinct parts, \dz. the body, 
\vhich is the earthly or mortal part of him ; the soul, Avhich is the ani- 
mal or sensitive part ; and the spirit, or mind, which is the rational or 
immortal part.'*' — Mason on Self-knan'icdge, part i., chap ii., note a, 
where see a learned note. 



Sanctification in Spirit ^ Souly and Body. 3 5 



And, as in him, though the spirit was sanctified, 
covetousness prevented the sanctification of his soul ; 
so it is not uncommon to see men whose minds are 
enlightened, but whose souls are not touched by the 
divine influence^. That holy fire has not burnt out 
their dross ; their vices shew them to be still un- 
sanctified. A belief in the truth of religion often 
exists without the slightest intention or inclination 
to obey the law of God ^ We^ have heard of men 
acknowledging that they have examined the evidences 
of Christianity, and were satisfied of its truth, but 
confessing at the same time that their passions were 
too strong for their convictions. Without being un- 
believers, they were sensual in their souls and vicious 
in their lives. In a Christian country there is such 
a general knowledge of God, and such a general be- 
lief in Scripture as the Word of God, that sanctifica- 
tion of the spirit or mind, as far as this can effect it, 
is not uncommon ; but more rare is the sanctification 
of the soul, which, as we have said, is the seat of the 
will and the passions. If the will is corrupt, averse 
to the service of God, disinclined to obey His com- 
mandments, and enslaved to the lusts of the flesh, 
which are expressly said to war against the soul," 
in vain has the mind been enlightened by the know- 

^ The intellect may be enlightened long before the current of the 
feelings has been changed." — Hannah^ Bampton Lectures^ pp. 203, 4. 

^ I knew a man of great intellectual gifts, but of lax morality, who 
owned that he thought " Paley had proved his point, that Christianity 
was true." — J. T. 



36 



Sermon III. 



ledge of divine truth ; it has not sanctified the soul, 
and therefore rather tends to increase a man's con- 
demnation, as '^he that knew his Lord's will, and 
prepared not himself, nor did according to his will," 
shall be "beaten with many stripes," that is, shall 
receive a heavier punishment than the enlightened 
natural man. 

But when sanctification has passed on from the 
spirit to the soul, then a man's actions are conformed 
to his convictions. Before this, there is a conflict, like 
that described by St. Paul in the seventh chapter of 
his Epistle to the Romans, — a conflict between the 
mind and the soul, when the man approves what is 
right, but fails to do it ; and condemns what is wrong 
but is continually falling into it. From this wretched 
state he is delivered when God, by His Spirit, sanc- 
tifies his soul. Then his perverse will is rectified, 
his wrong desires no longer prevail over his good 
resolutions, his rebellious passions are kept under, 
the bad temper is corrected, and becomes kind and 
amiable. The evil passions — envy, hatred, and malice 
— to which the natural man is too prone, the new 
man which is raised up" in him enables him to 
cast out like so many malignant spirits ; habits of 
wickedness are broken off, and the love of God and 
goodness actuate and sway all his soul. 

From this follows, as a matter of course, the sancti- 
fication of the body ; for when the body offends, or 
causes a man to offend, it is by complying with some 
base desire of the soul. If the eye offends, it is by 



Sanctification in Spirit^ Soul^ and Body. 37 



looking upon some forbidden object to desire it; if 
the hand offends, it is when covetousness tempts 
a man to steal or rob, or when anger or revenge 
urges him to raise it against his neighbour's person 
or life. "Whence come wars and fightings among 
you says St. James : " Is it not from your lusts 
which war in your members V For though the 
members minister to the lusts, the lusts are in the 
soul ; and when the soul is sanctified, the passions 
are subdued, and the body commits no offence. 

It is a false opinion, borrowed from the heathens, 
that the body is a clog to the soul, a hindrance to 
its best operations ^. The Christian thinks of it more 
justly and more honourably. He is taught to sanc- 
tify it, and it is sanctified by Baptism, when it is 
dedicated to the service of God, whence it becomes 
" the temple of the Holy Ghost," who will dwell in it 
if it be kept pure and undefiled. It is a member of 
Christ. " Know ye not that your bodies are the 
members of Christ.'^" Hence the great sinfulness 

^ * ' Christianity is far from agreeable to that comfortless view of 
things, according to which the body is merely the prison of the human 
spirit, a view which conducts but to rigid asceticism. 

**The Gospel considers, as the object of the connection between 
body and soul, that the former should be glorified for a temple of the 
Holy Spirit, so that the word of a certain spirited thinker is quite 
scriptural : 'without body, no soul ; without corporeity, no felicity." — 
Olshausen. 

*'The soul and body are inextricably united. It is of no practical 
use to consider them apart ; and if we do so, it is clear that the human 
body is not a base or mean thing, but on the contrary one of the most 
noble and glorious things known." — Ecce Homo, 115. 



38 



Sermon III. 



of fornication, a sin so commonly committed as if 
it was thought no sin at all. But it is in fact, as 
the Church pronounces it, a deadly sin." And what 
says St. Paul : " Flee fornication." " Every (other) sin 
that a man doeth is without the body," or apart from 
the body; ^'but he that committeth fornication sin- 
neth against his own body. For the body is not for 
fornication, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the 
body." Thus the body is not bad in itself, but be- 
comes bad when it is possessed by an impure soul, 
which uses it to gratify its own evil inclinations. We 
have, indeed, one passage of Scripture in which it is 
called our vile body," but there it is mistranslated. 
In the original, rendered literally, it is " the body 
of our humiliation ^." For we are humbled, in that 
our body is subject to death, which originally it was 
not, and in that passage St. Paul is comparing it in 
its present low estate with what it will be at the re- 
surrection, when Christ will change it and fashion 
it like unto His glorious body." The dead body^ 
indeed, is subject to corruption, but in the living 
body there is nothing despicable, unless our vices 
make it so. It may become bloated by gluttony or 
sloth ; drunkenness may impair its powers and facul- 
ties, and lust may bring diseases into its frame. But 
these are its abuses. In its sound and healthy state, 
the body is a noble instrument, or rather an active 
servant of the soul, able to execute its designs, to 
undertake its useful labours, and to fulfil the im- 

^ TO (Twfxa. rris raTreivwa^cos rifxccv. Phil. iii. 21. 



Sa7ictification in Spirit^ Soul, and Body. 



39 



portant duties required of it. Nor can we in our 
present state do anything without it. Nay, in the 
intermediate state between death and the resurrec- 
tion, the soul, separated from the body, though in 
a state of rest and comfort, is not supposed to have 
any activity. Wherefore the Preacher admonishes 
us to do now what we wish to be done : " Whatsoever 
thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might ; for 
there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor 
wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest 

Suppose, then, the Christian to be "sanctified 
wholly," it remains that the " whole spirit, and soul, 
and body, be preserved blameless and this will 
be the consequence of sanctification as its cause. For 
as holiness is, as it were, a new creation, so the pre- 
servation of it in each of its three parts is still neces- 
sary. That the spirit or mind may be " preserved 
blameless," we must hold fast the faith we have em- 
braced. The sacred truths by Avhich we have been 
enlightened must be kept up in our minds and memo- 
ries, and we must beware of admitting doubt or dis- 
belief in the reality and the certainty of the life to 
come. That the soul may be "preserved blameless," 
we must, by meditation and reflection, continually 
renew and refresh the impressions which religion has 
once made upon it ; good dispositions must be che- 
rished by prayer for grace, and evil ones kept out 
by watchfulness against "that evil spirit" who is 
ever waiting to bring them to life again. Then the 

^ Eccles, ix. lo. 



40 



Sermon III. 



soul, being thus guarded, the body will be pre- 
sented blameless" by avoiding all the shameful acts 
which would pollute it ; in short, it Avill be kept 
in temperance, soberness, and chastity." Thus 
sanctified wholly," thus "preserved blameless" in 
spirit, soul, and body, we shall be preparing and 
prepared, when the summons comes, to depart and 
be with Christ," from whom death will not separate 
us, since he is the Lord both of the dead and the 
living." 

It is now time to inquire, my brethren, whether 
you have considered the importance of this sancti- 
fication upon which we have dwelt so long t Have 
you ever understood the meaning of the words, the 
being made holy, endowed with hoHness For holi- 
ness, rememiber, is a divine gift ; it must be be- 
stowed upon us by God. If, then, you perceive, as 
many of you surely must perceive, that it is not in 
you, that you have it not, you must pray for that 
Holy Spirit, which alone can supply it, to work what 
is wanting in you. For it is not a matter of indiffer- 
ence whether you a*re sanctified or not ; it is of the 
utmost importance that you should become holy, 
since holiness is the one indispensable qualification 
for happiness hereafter. There is no admission into 
heaven without it. And as you desire that your 
soul should rest in peace and comfort when you 
leave this world, and be happily re-united to the 
body at the " resurrection of the just," you will de- 
voutly wish and pray for the gift of sanctification. 



Sanctification in Spirit, Soul, mid Body. 41 



Christians in general, because they are supposed to 
be sanctified, are called in Scripture, saints, or holy 
ones, and are exhorted to live and act as becometh 
saints." Alas ! few are now ambitious of that glo- 
rious title. Ashamed of it themselves, too many 
apply it in derision to those whom they consider 
"over good" and more pious than they wish to be. 
But if we had a right understanding of that holy 
denomination, we should rejoice in it, and our hearts 
would accompany our voices as often as, addressing 
Christ the King of Glory," we cry, " Make us to be 
numbered with Thy saints in glory everlasting." For 
glory as well as bliss is the promised portion of the 
saints. The desire of happiness, indeed, is universal ; 
the sinner feels that as much as the saint; but to 
aspire to glory, especially to heavenly glory, is a 
much loftier aim. To excite this, mark how sub- 
lime a prayer St. Paul pours forth in addressing the 
Ephesians : ''That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, 
the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of 
wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him ; the 
eyes of your understanding being enlightened, that 
ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and 
what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in 
the saints." Here you will observe that it is their 
spirit, or understanding, which he prays may be en- 
dowed with wisdom, &c., — '' the eyes of your under- 
standing being enlightened." In another place he 
prays, " that they may be able to comprehend with 
all saints the love of Christ, which passeth know- 



42 



Sermon III. 



ledge." The fact is, my brethren, that we take much 
too low a vieAv not only of what Christ has done for 
us. but of what he has promised to us, that exceed- 
ing and eternal weight of glory " Avhich is the re- 
ward of holiness. This we cannot fully or adequately 
estimate because our spirit is not sanctified ; our 
hearts are waxed gross, our souls therefore are not 
affected by a sense of divine things, and this insen- 
sibility of soul too often leads to sinful indulgence 
of the body. For were the spirit rightly sanctified, 
the mind, enlightened by the Word of God, would 
perceive, on the one hand, the danger of a sinful 
state, and its dreadful end ; and, on the other, would 
have a due sense of the love of Christ, who sufi'"ered, 
not only to save us from punishment, but to obtain 
for us an entrance into happiness and glory. Then 
would the best feelings of the soul be aAvakened, its 
hopes and its fears would be excited ; its fear of 
losing what is so precious, and incurring what is so 
terrible, — and its hope of gaining admission into that 
blessed place, '' where is joy unspeakable and full of 
glory." Having this hope, the soul would ''purify 
itself even as He is pure," and would so mortify 
"the body and bring it into subjection," that the 
Christian, " cleansed from all filthiness of flesh and 
spirit, Avould perfect holiness in the fear of God." 

If any of you, now, should be at a loss to under- 
stand how these different parts of our nature — the 
spirit, soul, and body — act upon each other, perhaps 
a simple explanation may make it clear to you. Sup- 



Sanctification in Spirit^ Soidy and Body, 43 



pose a piece of news, that did not at all concern you, 
were, however, reported to you ; in this case your 
spirit, or mind, would gain the knowledge of the fact, 
but there it would end, your soul would not be af- 
fected by it. But suppose some good or evil tidings 
were announced which very nearly concerned you, 
then, as before, your mind would gain the know- 
ledge of the fact ; but that knowledge, now, would 
work upon your soul, causing it to grieve or rejoice, 
as the case might be. Again, suppose some good 
promised or some evil threatened : in that case, the 
mind, if it believed it, (for belief is an act of the 
mind,) would stir up the soul to pursue the good or 
to flee from the evil ; and in this case the soul would 
require the service of the body, without which no 
action can be performed. This is applicable to the 
matter of religion. When you repeat the Apostles' 
Creed (if it is anything more than repeating it), your 
spirit or mind acknowledges the facts therein an- 
nounced, and they are facts most important to you ; 
take only the three last Articles, which are practical 
— ''the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the 
body, and the life everlasting:" here it is not enough 
that the mind admits the truth of those articles ; that 
belief, if it be faith properly so called, will influence 
and operate upon your soul, inducing you to repent 
in order that you may obtain forgiveness here and 
a joyful resurrection to eternal life hereafter ; and 
your soul will not let the body be inactive, but will 
exercise it in all those good works which God has 



44 



Sermon III. 



prepared for us to walk in." So ''when the Lord 
opened the heart of Lydia to attend to the things 
which were spoken by Paul," that attention was an 
act of her mind, which was followed by a conversion 
of the soul, and by bodily exertion in doing good, 
as the history shews. 

To conclude, my brethren, how shall this "con- 
summation so devoutly to be wished," be effected ? 
how shall this entire sanctification of '' spirit, soul, and 
body," be wrought in you ? By prayer on your part, 
and by the Word of God working in you. We have 
already spoken of that great instrument in this ne- 
cessary work ; of its efficacy, the Psalmist speaks 
in these words : '' The law of the Lord is a perfect 
law, converting the soul;" and its mighty power in 
penetrating body, soul, and spirit, St. Paul describes 
in these strong terms : " The Word of the Lord is 
quick and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged 
sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul 
and spirit, and of the joints and marrow," that is, of 
the body in its inmost frame. For so close is the 
connection between soul and body, that the body is 
affected by the emotions of the soul. Thus, under 
the influence of fear men turn pale, and their limbs 
tremble. As when the impious Belshazzar saw 
the handwriting on the wall, which, before Daniel 
interpreted it, he felt conscious was written against 
himself, we read that the king's countenance was 
changed, and the joints of his loins were loosed, and 
his knees smote one against another." So when 



Sanctificatio7i in Spirit, Sottl, and Body. 45 



the preaching of Paul alarmed his conscience, " Felix 
trembled." But these violent effects are only pro- 
duced in particular and extreme cases. Enough for 
us if the Word of God so affects our souls, as to 
change the character for the better. This is the 
effect for which we should look. 

But secondary to that powerful instrument of re- 
generation, other means are to be used. The im- 
provement of the mind is our bounden duty, as the 
neglect of our talents is sin ; yet books that only 
inform the understanding are inferior in value to 
those which amend the heart and soul, such as shew 
us to ourselves ; for next to the knowledge of God, 
self-knowledge is the most precious, which even 
a heathen thought ^Mescended from heaven." That 
you may attain to this necessary knowledge, and to 
whatever else tends to the sanctification of *'your 
spirit, soul, and body," and so be preserved blame- 
less" unto the end, God, of His mercy, grant through 
Jesus Christ. 



SERMON IV. 



©ne €^0U, anU out fHetiiator. 



I TIMOTHY ii. 5. 



*^ There is one God, and one Mediator between God 



HE Scripture imputes to man in his natural 



^ state, that is, before he becomes a Christian, 
that he is ahenated or estranged from God ; but this 
estrangement consisted rather in an aversion to the 
divine laws, than in any disposition to disbelieve or 
doubt of the existence of a God, There is, in men 
at least, a curious, if not an anxious desire to know 
something of the nature of God, a readiness to re- 
ceive and retain some notions of religion. Amongst 
almost all nations — all, at least, but the most bar- 
barous — certain religious ideas have prevailed, which, 
as far as they go, are just and right. That there 
exist superior beings, who are good, wise, and power- 
ful ; who rule the universe, and support and provide 
for the creatures that inhabit it ; who, further, ap- 
prove and protect the good, and condemn and punish 
the wicked ; ideas such as these have been widely 
and generally diffused among mankind, and the 
writings of the heathens abound with them. Hence, 
such opinions are supposed to constitute the religion 



AND MAN, THE MaN ChRIST JeSUS. 




One God, and one Mediator. 



47 



of nature, though it is more probable that they owe 
their prevalence to a tradition received from the first 
parents of mankind, than that they are the natural 
suggestions of our common reason. 

One truth, it is certain, essential as it is to true 
religion, had been attained by few, if by any ; it is 
that which the text proclaims, that there is but one 
God." The utmost their wisest men seem to have 
arrived at was, that besides a number of inferior 
deities, there was one supreme, to whom the rest 
were subject. Thus, whilst various actions were as- 
cribed to different gods, any great exercise of Provi- 
dence or of sovereign power was attributed to God, 
or the Divinity. But whether they themselves held 
this truth doubtfully, or were afraid to interfere with 
popular belief, it was a truth which they were at 
no pains to communicate to the people; nay, they 
avowed that it was expedient to conceal it from 
them. The unity of God is so far from being a self- 
evident truth, that it never formed a part of national 
belief, unless where God vouchsafed to communicate 
it to mankind. It was the first of those great truths 
which God revealed to His ancient people the Jews, 
and one of the first in which the Gentiles were in- 
structed upon their becoming Christians. In order 
that it should be kept up among mankind, it was 
necessary that it should be revealed. For at the 
very time when God called Abraham, in whose de- 
scendants the knowledge of the true God was to be 
preserved, that destined Father of the faithful, if not 



48 



Sermon IV. 



himself a worshipper of many gods, was surrounded 
by those who were. And when Christ came upon 
earth, all nations of the world, (except the descen- 
dants of Abraham,) were so likewise ; and not only 
were many deities, but the images of those deities, 
the objects of their adoration. We must not, there- 
fore, conclude with those who reject Christianity, that 
men have by their own faculties discovered that there 
is one God. This is so contrary to fact, that if at 
this day there is a nation under heaven that does not 
worship more than one God, that nation has some 
knowledge of Christ. 

Thus, you see, it is to the Bible you owe it, 
that you know there is but one God. In the Old 
Testament you find it is the first commandment, 
'^Thou shalt have none other gods but Me;" and in 
the New, you observe Christ quoting from the Old, 
and giving His sanction to the words, Hear, O 
Israel, the Lord thy God is one Lord ;" and St. Paul, 
not only in our text, but elsewhere, asserts, Though 
there be that are called gods, whether in heaven or 
earth, to us there is but one God." 

This, then, we may be sure, is an essential point 
in our belief, and one which in all probability we 
never should have known, had we not been Chris- 
tians, or at least born in a Christian country. For 
though some who profess to disbelieve in Christ do 
indeed teach this, they derived it not, as they ima- 
gine, from their own superior reason, but from the 
circumstance of their birth and education in a Chris- 



One God, and one Mediator. 



49 



tian country, and from that very book which, in the 
pride of their understanding, they despise. 

In fact, the unity of God is by no means so clear 
to uninstructed man as some would have us believe. 
We look into the world, and we see there both good 
and evil. If we were not taught better by the Scrip- 
tures, we might conclude that one God caused the 
one, and some other one the other ; a belief which 
actually has prevailed to a great extent. Indeed, of 
all the effects that are produced in nature, we might 
conceive that they were caused by different gods, as 
the heathen thought of old, and as the savage thinks 
still ; that one ruled the air, another the earth, and 
a third the sea. We might conceive that they acted 
often in opposition to each other, and did not ap- 
prove or condemn the same things ; that one stirred 
up war, another delighted in peace ; that chastity 
recommended us to one, whilst impurity was sanc- 
tioned by another ; that there w^as indeed a god of 
justice, but there was also a god of gain, the patron 
of thefts and villainies : such things were believed by 
the multitude among the wisest nations of the earth. 
In fact, if we formed our notions of religion from 
what we see about us, and from what we know to be 
common among men, we might have concluded that 
there was not only a great variety of deities, but 
that they had all the varieties of human character ; 
so that goodness and wickedness being balanced 
nearly equally among them might be matter of in- 
difference to ourselves, and as we could not venerate 

E 



50 



Sennoji IV. 



such deities, we should not care to obey them. Such, 
really, was much the state of mind of the heathen 
world with respect to religion. 

And if men are liable to be thus misled whilst 
they affect to reason upon subjects beyond their 
comprehension, though in fact they do but follow 
their own imaginations, Avhilst the generality are in- 
disposed to reason at all upon serious things, can it 
seem surprising that God should have interposed, and 
have condescended Himself to be their instructor, 
upon a point where instruction was so much needed ? 
For if you observe hovv^ completely the pernicious 
errors into which unenlightened man had fallen are 
dispelled by the doctrine of the unity of God, you 
will see the reason why it should have been revealed. 
If there is but one God, then He is the first Cause 
of all things ; all things proceeding from one mind, 
are directed to one end ; the same design prevails 
through all ; there is no opposition, no confusion, no 
disorder, but all is harmony throughout the universe. 
His power extending through all space, all beings, 
whether in heaven, or earth, or under the earth, are 
subject to the same sovereign rule, and can produce 
no evil without His permission, none that He cannot 
control or remedy. Then, as He is altogether good 
and holy, all virtue must be acceptable to Him, all 
sin must be His abhorrence. He must delight in 
good men, and they in whom He delights must in 
the end be happy ; whilst the wicked, opposing a will 
which they cannot effectually resist, must finally be 



One God, and one Mediator, 



5^ 



miserable. These clear and salutary notions arise 
from the persuasion that there is but one God, and 
would be confounded by a belief in many. To make 
clear so essential a truth, then, was not unworthy of 
divine revelation. 

But can we stop here 1 When it is established 
that there is but one God, who unites in Himself all 
perfections, wisdom, and power, with goodness and 
justice ; from whom virtue may expect a sure re- 
ward, and wickedness a certain punishment ; is this 
one truth sufficient for our comfort, and can we rest 
satisfied with a religion that reveals no more ? If 
God be such as He is here represented, He has 
a claim upon us which we shall not find that we 
have answered as we ought. What love, what grati- 
tude, what reverence must be due to Him, and in 
how small a degree have we discharged the debt ! 
When the Scripture asserts that it is the first and 
great commandment to love God with all our heart, 
and mind, and soul, and strength," it demands no 
more than reason dictates to be due from man to 
his Maker, to whom he owes all that he is, all that 
he has, and all that he can hope for. And can it be 
said of any living soul that he has in any suitable 
degree fulfilled this first and great commandment ? 
Looking, again, to what follows from the pure and 
holy nature of God, what sort of persons we ought 
to be, in all other respects, in order to be acceptable 
to Him — how just, how benevolent, how temperate, 
how free from wilful sin ; and, comparing what we 



Serino7i IV. 



have been and are with what we ought to be, few of 
us, it is to be feared, could derive comfort from con- 
sidering the existence of such a God, and knowing 
nothing further. For that we have not fulfilled the 
law of God must be the feeling of us all, and feeling 
this, how can we approach Him but with uneasiness, 
and dread, and apprehension ? The religion, there- 
fore, that represents God only in one person, how^ever 
it might be adapted for perfect beings, seems ill- 
suited to us who are more than imperfect, positively 
sinful. Behold, therefore, the consistency of divine 
revelation ; it has not only informed us that there 
is but one God, (a truth, as we have seen, so essential 
to right religion,) but because, when this one God is 
discovered to us, the holiness of His nature is so 
much at variance with the sinfulness of our own, 
that we are rather alarmed than comforted by the 
discovery ; a second person is announced to us in 
the Gospel, who is at once the Son of God and the 
Son of man ; in the former character He has all in- 
fluence with God, in the latter, all sympathy with 
man. This is He who is spoken of in the text, 
There is one Mediator between God and man, the 
Man Christ Jesus." For here St. Paul speaks of 
Christ in His human nature, and this to dispel those 
terrors which are apt to strike the imagination of 
sinful men when God is announced, as we read that 
at the manifestation of the presence of the Lord on 
the holy mount, the chosen people and Moses him- 
self trembled. 



One God, and one Mediator. 



53 



Certain it is that this passage contains the only 
doctrine which can enable us with any satisfaction 
to think upon and draw nigh unto God." For 
what is the notion of a Mediator ? It is this, — a per- 
son who interposes between two parties that are at 
enmity, to make peace between them. 

Consider, then, that we are a sinful race, and yet 
that we need reconciliation with God in order to our 
present comfort and our everlasting happiness, and 
it follows that we need such a Mediator as Christ 
Jesus is here represented to be. For are we not, one 
and all, guilty creatures 1 Do not our hearts as well 
as our prayers confess that we are miserable sin- 
ners.-^'' Are we not, then, at enmity with God, and 
God with us } Is it not the nature of God to be 
averse to sin, and is it not the part of human nature 
to hate One who we know has just cause to be of- 
fended with us 1 If this is our state, who shall re- 
concile us to God } This question, we may observe, 
could not be answered till our doctrine was revealed 
from heaven. How shall sinful man make his peace 
with God," was an inquiry which the wisest of the 
heathens confessed himself unable to satisfy. But 
in the text it is satisfactorily answered. The diffi- 
culty IS cleared up by the appointment of a Mediator 
who stands in the relation of a Son to God, of a 
friend and fellow-man to ourselves. 

In justifying the ways of God to man, it is allow- 
able to illustrate His dealings with mankind by com- 
paring them with transactions familiar to ourselves ^ 



54 



Sermon IV, 



for He has Himself adopted this method of explain- 
ing His ways to us. Suppose, then, a personage of 
great dignity has just reason to be offended with 
a family who were dependent upon him ; suppose 
this family in a state of ruin, and fearful to apply 
to him from a consciousness of their ill-deserts, yet 
unable to obtain aid from any other quarter : what 
could be done in order to secure the honour of the 
insulted benefactor, and to save these unhappy cul- 
prits from perdition? Here is a case, we say, that 
requires a mediator. Suppose, then, a son of this 
great personage should, from pure kindness and 
compassion, undertake the cause of these offenders : 
suppose him to intercede for them, to plead with 
his father for their forgiveness, and implore him to 
receive them again into his favour ; is it not con- 
ceivable that the father, for the sake of his son, and 
in consideration of his great merits, might be recon- 
ciled to this family, and bestow upon them once 
more that favour and countenance which he never 
■v^ald have shewn them, had they not found so- 
powerful a patron and intercessor? 

This, my brethren, is the exact view which the 
Scripture gives us of the mediation of Christ Jesus. 
We men are the unworthy family of God ; we were 
under His displeasure, and had just reason to dread 
His punishment. The Son of God has taken up our 
c-au§e, ' and we, who for our own sakes, for our own 
deservings, could never have found grace with Him^ 
are enabled, through the mediation of Christ, to ap- 



07ie God, afid ojie Mediator. 



55 



proach Him with hope, and with a gracious assurance 
of being accepted with Him. All the titles and offices 
of Christ are a strong confirmation of this view. He 
is the Son of God, the beloved Son in whom God is 
well-pleased," so that our cause must succeed in His 
hands ; He is our Saviour and Redeemer; He is our 
High-priest, ''who hath entered into heaven to make 
intercession for us ;" and, lastly, He is our Advo- 
cate with the Father." 

You think, and very rightly, that the grand object 
of religion is God the Father ; but you see that He 
is not the only object ; to the Son of God, the Me- 
diator between God and man, such obligations are 
due from us, that He also is entitled to our love, our 
gratitude, our obedience, our adoration. For by be- 
coming the Son of Man He does not cease to be 
the Son of God, that relation is " from everlasting to 
everlasting." But as man He comes nearer to us, 
and brings us nearer to God. We may approach 
Him as man, and through Him have access to the 
Father. But supposing Christ Jesus to be only man, 
man in the same sense that we are men, He would 
indeed be as near to us, but could have no right to 
bring us nearer to God ; for He has influence with 
the Father, because He is of the same divine nature. 
According to our own ideas of the relation between 
a father and a son, we understand that in point of 
order a father is the first, and a son the second, but 
in point of nature a father and a son are equal ; and as 
the Scripture has chosen to express the relation be- 



56 



Sermon IV. 



t\\ een God and Christ by that of a father and a son, 
we conclude that with respect to His divine nature 
Christ is equal to the Father, is indeed one with 
Him, though personally distinguished from Him, 
essentially united to Him. For the distinction of 
the persons is to be maintained consistently with 
the Unity of the Godhead. In the same manner, 
because from the same Scriptures which assert that 
there is but one God we learn that the Son and the 
Holy Ghost are partakers with the Father of the 
Godhead, Ave conclude that such and so intimate is 
the union between the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, 
that these Three are One, Avhich we commonly ex- 
press by saying in words, that there are three Persons 
and one God. At the same time, we admit that 
this and every account of the divine nature is in- 
finitely beyond our comprehension, — only we desire 
to express our faith in what we conceive to be re- 
vealed. 

But to descend from these high mysteries, which, 
presumptuously to search into, would perhaps be- 
vvHlder our understanding, or even shake our faith, 
this is the practical conclusion from the text, that, 
unless we are resolved to persevere in our sins, we 
need no longer consider ourselves in a state of aliena- 
tion from God. Justly, indeed, might the high and 
holy One regard us as a family of disobedient and 
undutiful children ; but that He who has taken our 
nature upon Him, "the Man Christ Jesus," has re- 
conciled Him to us. And there is in the divine 



One God, and one Mediator, 



57 



nature such a disposition to mercy, that "if we now 
draw nigh unto God," and implore His pardon and 
His grace in the Name of Christ, that blessed Me- 
diator will present our prayers and procure accept- 
ance to our persons. 

Consider, therefore, my Christian brethren, how 
essential a doctrine it is that we are enforcing, and 
how much it breathes of peace and good-will to 
man, — that God has appointed a Mediator, through 
whom He may be approached. God, perfect in 
holiness and infinite in power, must be terrible to 
conscious sinners ; and man, unworthy man, would 
shrink from all access to Him, if there were not 
One to procure for us a gracious acceptance. If, 
indeed, we hide from ourselves the fact that we are 
unworthy of His favour, both from the corruption of 
our nature and from our actual misdeeds, we may 
intrude rashly and irreverently into His presence ; 
but our addresses will be presumptuous. For to 
what purpose has He appointed a Mediator, if He 
is accessible in any other way 1 This doctrine is the 
refuge of the convicted contrite sinner. It is when 
the soul, weary of its sins, desires to renounce them, 
that the great Mediator pleads for its pardon, and 
effectually pleads. Then is the sinner reconciled to 
God, and, like the child led by some friendly hand 
into the presence of its parent, he is assured that all 
his misdeeds are forgiven ; that love and peace are 
renewed between them ; that his offences, if they be 
not repeated, shall be remembered no more ; that all 



58 



Servwn II 



\ 



which is now required, is a return to duty and obedi- 
ence, and perseverance in it. 

But if the view which we have taken of the media- 
tion of Christ is in the highest degree encouraging 
and consolatory, let the effect of it upon your hearts 
be such as to induce you to avail yourselves of 
the mercy proffered through Christ. The object 
of Christ's mediation is to bring us all to a state 
of glory and happiness, which we can never attain 
whilst we continue in our sins. Is it nothing that 
there is in heaven a God ready to pardon, and a 
I\Iediator appointed to bring you nigh unto Him ? 
Shall the great Father of spirits, seated on His 
throne of mercy, wait, as it were, your approach ; 
and is the Son, exalted at His right hand, prepared 
to lay your suit before Him ; and are you so bound 
to earth, so averse to look above, as to decline His 
mediation } What is it that He pleads for It is 
for the forgiveness of your sins, if you have resolved 
to forsake them ; it is for the effusion of His Spirit 
to renew your minds, if you are desirous to reform ; 
it is for your admission into heaven, w^hen you have 
finished your course, and persevered unto the end in 
faith and obedience. Consider, then, your ways, and 
reflect how abundant is that mercy, which, unworthy 
as you are, and wicked as you may have been, is 
prepared to cancel the deep debt of your sins. Re- 
turn to God through Christ, w^ho has reconciled God 
to you, if only by bringing you to repentance and 
amendment of life, He can reconcile you to God, 



One God, and 07ie AI ediator. 



59 



There are in Scripture various views of Jesus 
Christ, in which He is represented in a hght that 
commands our love and admiration. When at the 
funeral of the widow's son He stops the bier, and 
recalls the departed youth to life, and restores him 
to his weeping mother ; or when at the tomb of 
Lazarus, He sympathizes even to tears with sorrow, 
which He is about to turn into joy ; when under 
the protracted agonies of the Cross, as if insensible 
to His own sufferings, He pleads for the forgiveness 
of those who inflicted them, and at the same time 
commends His distressed Mother to the care of 
"the disciple whom He loved;" in how amiable 
a light does He appear ! Yet these are human views 
of Him, lovely, indeed, and "worthy of all admira- 
tion." But as the Mediator between God and man, 
He is to be contemplated in a character not only 
more sublime, but more interesting to ourselves. 
Exalted as man in the presence of His Father, He 
is ever making intercession for us, beseeching Him 
to look upon us no more as a sinful race, undeserv- 
ing of His regard, but as penitents thankfully ac- 
cepting His mediation. 

We have, then, as Christians, One who can pre- 
vail with God for us. Do we persistently confess 
our sins, and implore pardon } Christ seconds the 
request, and they are blotted out for ever. Con- 
scious of the weakness of our nature, do we suppli- 
cate for grace and spiritual help } Christ obtains it 
for us. In the depth of our afflictions, do we seek 



6o 



Sermon IV. 



for consolation from above ? through Christ we are 
reheved, and supported, and comforted. Even the 
blessings of this life, asked with a moderate and 
humble spirit, Christ procures for us, if they are 
consistent with the welfare of our souls. In short, 
through Him and through His mediation all the 
mercies of God, spiritual and temporal, flow to us. 
Let us, therefore, learn to trust in Him, through 
Him let us seek access to God, and strive, by obe- 
dience to His laws, to gain admission into that 
heavenly kingdom which He has opened to all 
believers." 



SERMON V. 



©n tfje ioxQibmm of ^ms, ttjrouglj t|)e 
atonement of Cfirtst. 



ST. MATTHEW ix. 6, 7. 



But that ye may know that the Son of Man hath 

POWER ON earth TO FORGIVE SINS, (THEN SAITH He 

to the sick of the palsy,) ' Arise, take up thy bed, 

AND GO UNTO THINE HOUSE.' AnD HE AROSE, AND DE- 
PARTED TO HIS HOUSE." 



OUR Lord here delivers a most important doc« 
trine, and He works a miracle to prove, and 
appeals to it as a proof, that His doctrine is true. 

It appears that the fame of our Lord's powerful 
preaching, and of His extraordinary works, had at- 
tracted towards Him great multitudes of followers, 
some of whom sought His instruction, whilst others 
desired to be benefited by the gifts of healing which 
He exercised. Upon the present occasion, as we 
are told by St. Mark, the house where He was would 
not admit the numbers who flocked to hear Him, 
and who thronged about the doors. The friends of 
a person afflicted by a paralytic disorder were thus 
prevented from bringing the unhappy sufferer into 
His presence, until they availed themselves of a con- 
venience afforded by the structure of the Jewish 
houses, which admitted of a person being let down 




62 



Senno}i J 



into the interior through an opening in the roof. 
Their having recourse to this uncommon mode of 
entrance manifested their eagerness to bring the 
sick man to Him, from whom they confidently ex- 
pected His cure. Our Lord, we are told, seeing their 
faith, which this circumstance so strongly marked, 
was induced to reward it by granting their wishes 
and restoring their friend. But that the act of mercy 
might be accompanied with benefit to the assembled 
company, He first addressed to the paralytic these 
striking words, Son, be of good cheer, thy sins be 
forgiven thee which Avords implied not merely a 
kind wish that God might forgive him, which any 
other man might have expressed, ' but were an au- 
thoritative declaration that they Vv^ere forgiven. It 
was a sentence of absolution, or acquittal, as 'from 
One who had the power to pardon. In this sense 
the}' were understood b}' the Jewish doctors, or 
Scribes, who, being already jealous of Christ, eagerly 
watched His words, in order to catch at whatever 
in them might seem to them objectionable. ''The 
power of forgiving sins," said they among themselves, 
" belongs to God alone. What blasphemy, then, is 
this that we hear ? Does this new Teacher pretend 
upon His own authority to absolve men from sin 
Thus the}' reasoned, not aloud but inwardl}' ; but 
Christ knew their thoughts, and to their thoughts 
He addressed His answer: " Wh}^ do you conceive 
these evil imaginations against ^Ic, as if I assumed 
a power which did not belong to Ale ? Think \'e, 



On the Forgiveness of Sins, &c, 63 

that the words I utter I cannot make good ? It is 
easy to say, 'Thy sins be forgiven thee/ But what 
if I say to this sick man, ' Take up thy bed and 
walk;' if My word is attended with effect in the 
one case, v/ill you not believe it in the other ? Know 
that 'the Son of Man,' (as in My present state of 
humiliation I call Myself,) 'has power on earth to 
forgive sins.' Take this action for a proof of it. If 
at My word this paralytic is restored, you may con- 
clude that the same word was no less effectual when 
it pronounced the forgiveness of his sins." Then, 
turning again to the sick man. He said, "Arise, 
take up thy bed, and walk." And at the word the 
paralytic was restored ; he rose from the bed on 
which he had been brought utterly helpless, and, 
in proof of his recovered strength, carried it away 
to his house, leaving the multitude in astonishment 
and admiration at so wonderful a display of divine 
power. 

Such were the circumstances of this extraordinary 
cure. But it is not mere astonishment at the power 
that Jesus here displayed which this miracle should 
produce in your minds. It is, as was before said, to 
be considered as a proof that Christ was the Person 
whom He claimed to be, the Saviour of men. The 
multitude, in whose presence it was wrought, "glori- 
fied God who had given such power unto men." 
But such power is bestowed not to grace the pre- 
tences of an impostor, but to distinguish the Person 
who is really sent from God. It is an answer to 



64 



Sermon V. 



the appeal He makes to heaven for the truth of His 
doctrine. It proves that what He teaches is the 
word of God^ as surely as those works are the works 
of God. 

But, further, this miracle in particular, we have 
said, was wrought to prove the truth of the doc- 
trine which He here advanced, that the Son of 
Man hath power on earth to forgive sins." Such 
a power had never been manifested on earth before, 
and yet the forgiveness of sins is what we all desire, 
what we all want. In all ages mankind have en- 
deavoured to find out some way in which the divine 
mercy might be obtained. With this view, at one 
time, they have been found inflicting punishment 
upon themselves, thus hoping to avert the punish- 
ment which else they feared God would inflict upon 
them. Or they have been willing, by a sacrifice of 
slaughtered animals, to substitute a victim in place 
of themselves. Some nations have been known, (and 
our own among them, in days of yore,) to devote 
to death human beings, in order to appease the 
anger of the offended gods, in whom they believed. 
Nay, parents have sought reconciliation with God 
by offering to Him the blood of their own children 
slain upon His altar. Blind and cruel modes of pro- 
pitiation these ! but they ser\'e to shew that the 
sense of mankind, publicly and privately, has been 
that they were guilty creatures in the sight of God, 
and that they ventured not to hope for mercy with- 
out some atonement, some satisfaction offered to the 



On the Forgiveness of Sins^ &c, 65 

divine justice. Yet v/hat uneasiness must they have 
felt, if ever they considered how unhkely it was that 
sin could be atoned by such methods as these ! How 
truly, then, did He preach ''good tidings of great 
joy," who announced to men that He had power 
on earth to forgive sins," and who gave proof of His 
power, by releasing men in so many instances from 
those sufferings which seem to human apprehension 
the chastisements of it. For that diseases, though 
not always the punishment of particular sins, are 
part of the load laid upon us as partakers of a sin- 
ful nature, is the doctrine of Scripture. The Jews, 
indeed, carried this notion farther than they were 
warranted, since it was their opinion that he was 
the most grievous sinner whom they saw most griev- 
ously afflicted. They, for instance, would conclude 
that this paralytic was one with whom God was 
offended ; and that the stroke of the palsy was, as 
we express it, a judgment upon him for his trans- 
gressions. To them, therefore, the argument of our 
Saviour would be most convincing. To them, Christ, 
by healing diseases, would in effect seem to exercise 
the power of forgiving sins. 

But whatever the Jews thought, let us consider the 
doctrine itself, in which we and all the world are in- 
terested, and which forms one of the articles of our 
Creed ; for we profess to believe in the forgiveness 
of sins." In teaching this necessary truth, the Holy 
Spirit has not thought it sufficient simply to inform 
us that sin will be forgiven. He has condescended 

F 



66 



Sermon V. 



to shew us further, through whom that forgiveness 
is obtained, and in what manner that precious boon 
was procured for us. Every page, and almost every 
paragraph of Scripture, has some reference to the 
peculiar way in which this is effected for us. And, 
perhaps, it is the most striking feature in the whole 
plan of Christianity. It is not there represented, 
that if a man sins, yet if he repents of his sin, all is 
well, as if it were a matter of course. The Scrip- 
ture gives us a worthier view of the justice and holi- 
ness of Almighty God, which required a satisfaction 
that man could not offer, and which the Son of God, 
by becoming Man, offered for him ; and this offering 
it is which makes his repentance available to his 
forgiveness : for all mankind are naturally under 
the displeasure of God by reason of their sinfulness. 
And how did Christ obtain from His Father the 
power to forgive sins, but by becoming Himself a 
sacrifice for sins 1 This is the meaning of those 
phrases which describe Him as the Lamb who was 
slain for us," as having washed us from our sins in 
His Blood." These expressions, to the unreflecting 
and profane, carry a strange sound, but are most 
significant when the doctrine is understood which 
the Scripture so plainly teaches, that it was neces- 
sary in the view of God, before He would consent 
to pardon men, that Christ by dying should atone 
for their sins. And when it is boldly and irre- 
verently asked whether God could not have for- 
given men without such a sacrifice, and why He 



On the Forgiveness of Sins, &c. 



67 



did not, we are not bound to answer, for the ques- 
tion is presumptuous. But we cannot doubt that 
God chose that method which seemed to Him the 
wisest and the best ; a method which we see has the 
advantage of reconciling the justice and the mercy 
of God : so that whilst the sinner, the penitent sin- 
ner, is assured of pardon, the punishment of sin has 
been manifested to all moral beings in the sufferings 
of the Son of God for sinners. 

If, indeed, we were the whole of God's rational 
creatures, we might perhaps expect to know the 
whole reasons of God's proceedings in this stupend- 
ous plan. But for the present, we must be content 
to know only in part. In this world it is often found 
necessary to punish those whom we might feel dis- 
posed to pardon, for the sake of example, as we call 
it, to others, since every escape from punishment has 
the effect of encouraging wickedness. And perhaps 
God might see fit to exhibit to angels, and the in- 
habitants of other worlds, who have not yet fallen, 
a striking proof of His severity against sin, in the 
sufferings borne by His Son when He became the 
willing representative of sinners. At all events, with 
respect to ourselves, one thing is plain, that if we 
escape punishment, it is because Christ has suffered 
for us : " God hath laid on Him the iniquities of us 
all." Here is our hope, if we have any hope, that 
our sins will be pardoned, because Christ in His own 
person has atoned for them. 

But surely God is willing to pardon, and he who 



68 



Sermon V, 



repents has a natural right to expect it." So some 
have said, but the Scripture speaks a different lan- 
guage. And, my brethren, let me freely ask you whe- 
ther you think that you have a right to the forgive- 
ness of your sins. Do not the very terms involve a con- 
tradiction =^ Have Vv'e not sinned, and does not that 
sin deserve punishment ? True, we may avoid sin- 
ning in future. But is not the obedience of to-day 
as much God's due as the obedience of yesterday ? 
How, then, can the disobedience of yesterday be 
atoned for by the obedience of to-day. If, then, 
forgiveness is granted, it is more than we have a 
ri^ht to. It is the free 2:ift of God's mercv in Christ. 
This is that grace, that unmerited favour, of which 
the Apostle Paul so often speaks, and which he op- 
poses to the notion of our being saved by the merit 
of our Avorks ; and, on the contrary, maintains that 
it is faith that justifies. But how } Because God 
has been pleased to grant the forgiveness of sins to 
faith. The sentence of condemnation is taken off 
from the believer in Christ. It was not till He saw 
their faith, that Jesus said to the paralytic, " Son, be 
of good cheer, thy sins be forgiven thee and His 
language to those whom He healed commonly was, 
''Thy faith hath made thee whole." Thus, in order 
to be forgiven, we must be, or must become, be- 
lievers in Christ. His promise of pardon is made 
only upon condition of our faith. 

Xor let this be thought unreasonable. The best 
dispositions of our nature are those which incline us 



On the Forgiveness of Sins^ &c. 



6g 



to believe. The love of truth, an openness to con- 
viction, the fear of God, an awful dread of His judg- 
ments, a right understanding of the evil and danger 
of a wicked course, with an anxious desire to be de- 
livered from them, these things enter into faith, or 
rather faith is made up of them all ; and surely these, 
if anything, are the dispositions that make us fit ob- 
jects for mercy. 

Again, consider what an active principle belief is, 
how naturally men pursue the course which they 
believe leads to happiness, and flee from that in 
which they believe there is danger. Who, then, are 
so likely to cease from wickedness and to aim at 
goodness, as they whose firm persuasion it is, that 
the one is the sure road to hell, the other the only 
way to heaven. God, therefore, is just in making 
faith the condition of justification, since it not only 
implies good and godly dispositions going before, 
but is in itself a stirring spring of action, tending 
always to correct and amend the conduct, and to 
purify the heart. 

But, then, you see what sort of faith is supposed 
to justify, not a mere accidental acknowledgment of 
certain truths upon which we have never reflected, 
but a lively apprehension of them ; a full persuasion 
of the reality of such things as religion reveals, so 
working within us as to influence all our lives. 

Thus, then, forgiveness of sins is promised to faith, 
that is, to believers in general. But, then, it is pro- 
mised to none without repentance. To prove this, 



70 



Sermon V, 



we might quote the Gospel from one end to the 
other, but one text will be sufficient, "Repent, and 
be converted, that your sins may be blotted out." 
Indeed, reason and common sense must convince 
us, that no man's sins can be forgiven whilst he 
continues in them. Whenever, therefore, the for- 
giveness of sins is spoken of, past sins must always 
be understood. This, in fact, is the doctrine of 
Scripture ; from the time that your faith so operates 
as to induce you to break off your sins by repent- 
ance, and seriously to commence a Christian course, 
from that time you may begin to hope. Especially 
for any besetting sin which you are labouring to 
subdue, you may trust to be pardoned, as soon as 
you find that you have mastered it. But never sup- 
pose that the sins which you are now in the habit of 
committing will be blotted out if you die in them. 
If, therefore, you would avail yourself of this most 
gracious promise of Christ, your part is plain, you 
must cast off the sins which now cleave to you, and 
then, but not till then, you may venture to hope for 
pardon. That you desire to be forgiven it is im- 
possible to doubt, that you may be forgiven you 
have the assurance of One who hath shewn that 
He "hath power on earth to forgive sins.'' Yet re- 
member that the promise of forgiveness is not so 
absolute, that you can obtain it at any time and at 
all events. There is a temper of mind with which 
it must be sought, a season beyond which it will 
not be granted. By continuance in a wicked course, 



On the Forgiveness of SinSy &c. 



the heart may become so hardened that you will no 
longer be a fit object for pardon. 

Lest this state should be yours, humble yourself be- 
fore God, confess to Him your past sins, whether they 
be wrong practices in which you have indulged your- 
self, or bad dispositions which you have not checked. 
To convince you of your sinfulness, read His Word, 
which should have been your law ; and when it has 
convinced you in how many ways you have sinned 
and fallen short of your duty, implore the Divine 
forgiveness, and with it the gracious renewing of His 
Holy Spirit, to enable you effectually to reform. So 
shall you receive strength to resist sin, and finally to 
overcome it. And this once obtained, will be an 
earnest that you will be forgiven in the end, for He 
who has delivered you from the power, will 'free you 
also from the punishment of sin. Provided, however, 
that you do not relapse into wickedness, since after 
all it is only they who persevere unto the end" that 
will finally be saved. 

In discoursing upon the forgiveness of sins, I have 
chosen to ground the doctrine upon the miracle with 
which it was announced in the case of the paralytic. 
Of his case, the most interesting view we can take is, 
perhaps, to consider that his circumstances may at 
some time or other be our own. However we may 
like to conceal from ourselves a truth so painful, we 
cannot deny the fact. Though you may now be in 
the bloom of youth, or in the full vigour of life, sens- 
ible of no infirmity, apprehensive of no disease, the 



72 



Sermon V. 



day cannot be very distant when, like him, you may 
be helpless, '4ying on a bed," the object of your 
friends' anxiety. To escape a sick bed, unless Ave 
be cut off by a sudden or violent death, is almost 
impossible. When, therefore, this occurs, (and the 
probability that it mil occur you must admit,) what 
is it you should most desire Is it that Christ would 
exercise His power to heal you } Ah, nature owns, 
that would be most desirable. But it is not always 
to be hoped. There is no warrant to expect a mira- 
culous cure ; and though Providence still holds in 
His Almighty hands the power of life and death, 
though there is still in prayer offered through Christ 
an efficacy to save from temporal death, though 
Scripture encourages us to hope that in some cases 
disease may be arrested and life prolonged by our 
own supplications, or the intercessions of our friends 
offered in faith and fervency through the mediation 
of our Saviour, yet this cannot be the case for ever, 
still we are mortal. The stroke that is to end us 
must at length be inflicted, and then, to repeat the 
question, What would be most desirable ? What but 
the gracious assurance which Christ gave the para- 
lytic, " Son, be of good cheer, thy sins be forgiven 
thee" ? For conceive the happiest state that the pre- 
sent life affords : let the worldly man be amply en- 
dowed with wealth and the power of enjoying it, let 
luxury spread before him all its dainties, let the 
pomp and splendour of life furnish the outward 
means of happiness, and the gaiety of his heart wit- 



On tJie Forgiveness of Sins, &c. 



73 



ness its reality, let youth and vigour of constitution 
hold out the promise of length of days, — with all this, 
faith will pronounce him not an object of envy com- 
pared with the poor palsied Christian who can ap- 
ply to himself those words of salvation, ^^Thy sins 
be forgiven thee." May we, my Christian brethren, 
when our hour arrives, be able to apply them to 
ourselves. For such an assurance must arise from 
within, from the testimony of a good conscience, 
from the witness of our own hearts, that we have 
repented of our early sins ; that we have conformed 
our lives to the will of God ; that we have kept His 
Word, and in all holy obedience have finished our 
course. 

But this cannot be, unless our faith be unreproved, 
and if our faith be unreproved, it will be able to 
point to good works, which by its energy we have 
performed. Because I have believed in Christ, (the 
sincere Christian will be able to say,) I have re- 
pented of my sins ; because I have believed in 
Christ, I have lived in all honesty ; because I have 
believed in Christ, I have kept my body in temper- 
ance, soberness, and chastity ; because I have be- 
lieved in Christ, I have endeavoured to be meek in 
temper, charitable, both in my disposition and my 
actions ; because I have believed in Christ, I have 
weaned my affections from this evil world, and fixed 
them upon things above." Here is faith the right 
principle, and holy obedience springing from it as 
its proper consequence. Happy will he be in whom 



74 



Sermon F. 



faith of such a quality is found, and whose works are 
conformable to it. He has a title, which nothing can 
shake, to the forgiveness of his sins, resting on the 
promises of his Saviour, and the covenanted mercies 
of his God. 



SERMON VI. 

— — 

ST. JAMES i. 27. 

"Pure religion and undefiled before God and the 
Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows 
in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted 

FROM THE world." 

IF we saw a man, my brethren, bestowing great 
pains upon the foundation of a building, and 
when it was laid, boasting of its strength and sound- 
ness ; and if afterwards we found him negligent of 
the structure that he raised upon it, should we not 
think the conduct of that man inconsistent and ab- 
surd ? For do we not all know that a foundation 
can be laid only with a view to the edifice which it 
is to support ? Not less ridiculous is the behaviour 
of the Christian, who lays the greatest stress upon 
the soundness of his faith, whilst he is careless of 
the virtues which should be superadded to it. It 
is, indeed, one of the evils of times like our own, 
in which the doctrines of religion are violently con- 
troverted, that the duties, to the observance of which 
those very doctrines should lead, become objects of 



76 



Servian VL 



inferior consideration. Persuaded that they have 
attained to correct notions in matters of faith, and 
perceiving that it is to faith that the promises of 
Scripture are particularly made, men take it for 
granted that they are in the safe Avay, because they 
are settled in a right belief. Thus we reverse the 
popular but erroneous notion of the poet, and as he 
argued speciously, though falsely, that his faith 
cannot be wrono; whose life is in the rip-ht," so Chris- 
tians conclude too hastily, that because their faith 
is rio-ht. their life cannot be materially wroncr and 
in the pride of orthodoxy, they lose sight of that 
moral and spiritual improvemient which should be 
the constant business of religion. 

Whoever considers the words of our text, and in- 
deed the Avhole Epistle of St. James, from which it 
is taken, will perceive that such erroneous notions 
must have prevailed among those to Avhom it was 
addressed, and that it is the design of St. James to 
rectify them. If it has been found difficult to re- 
concile this practical book with the doctrinal parts 
of Scripture, and especially the assertion which is 
made in it, that ''by works a man is justified, and 
not by faith only," with the conclusion of St. Paul, 
that ''a man is justified by faith without the works 
of the law the difficulty will perhaps be removed, 
if we attend to the different circumstances under 
which the two Apostles wrote, and the different 
errors which they had to oppose. Thus the busi- 
ness of St. Paul was to establish the faith of Christ 



On Religion^ piire and tmdefiled. 77 

where it was opposed by Jews who considered the 
Law of Moses sufficient to salvation ; and by Gen- 
tiles who argued, as free-thinkers still argue, that 
a life of reason and morality is all that God re- 
quires of man, and that the outward profession of 
the Gospel was not necessary. St. James, on the 
other hand, presided over a Church where the faith 
was already established, and in which the contro- 
verted points had been decided by a council of the 
Apostles. Need we wonder, therefore, that St. Paul 
should maintain, (which is all that he does main- 
tain,) that since man is naturally corrupt, and can- 
not render a perfect obedience, he cannot be saved 
by the works of the law ; that his sins against that 
law deserved punishment, and that in order to save 
him from it, he must embrace a faith under which 
pardon was obtained by other merits than his own, 
— or, in his own words, that he must be saved by 
grace, through faith ;" whilst St. James, supposing this 
faith to be already embraced, is desirous to guard 
against the abuse of a most gracious doctrine. Com- 
paring his arguments with those of St. Paul, we may 
conceive him to expostulate in this manner with 
those Christians who were disposed to rest and rely 
upon faith as dispensing with good works. Because 
we are saved by the merits of Christ, and not by 
our own, because pardon is promised to our sins, 
because faith is imputed to us for righteousness," 
are we, therefore, free from every law 1 Surely not. 
Christians have a Master and Lord, and His Word 



78 



Sermon VI. 



is their law. St. Paul admits that he is " under the 

law to Christ/' and, consistently with what he teaches, 
we maintain that there is a law so strictly binding, 
that ''he who offends against it in one point is guilty 
of violating the whole and when we call it " the 
perfect law of liberty," it is not because we are free 
to obey or disobey it, it is because what is now re- 
quired is, not a slavish subjection to Jewish cere- 
monies, nor that moral perfection which is beyond 
human power, but that willing obedience which by 
spiritual aid is now possible. 

These remarks, my Christian brethren, appeared 
to be called for, not only because they are generally 
true, and shew how closely faith and practice are 
connected, but because they explain why St. James 
has chosen in our text to delineate religion in the 
characters rather of morality than of divinity ; and 
because the whole tenor of my discourse will pro- 
ceed upon this principle, that obedience to the moral 
law of Christ is so absolutely essential, that without 
it our hopes of heaven are vain ; so that whatever we 
here recommend as a Christian duty, is to be under- 
stood as one of the conditions of salvation. 

It is not to be supposed that any of you expect 
to be saved without religion pure and undefiled," 
and you would appeal to your presence here in the 
house of God as a proof that you are not indifferent 
to religion. But does it not strike you as something 
strange, that when St. James describes the religion 
that is ''acceptable before God and the Father," he 



On Religion, pure and undefiled, 79 

should say not a word about belief in Christ, not 
a word about public worship, or prayer, or Baptism, 
or the Lord's Supper ? Are these things, which per- 
haps you have thought the whole of religion, in 
reality no part of it ? Far be it from any inter- 
preter of this passage so to pervert it. The things 
mentioned are parts, very essential parts, of religion ; 
but then they were understood to be so, and always 
have been by all true Christians. 

St. James did not mean accurately to define re- 
ligion, but to describe its effects ; to point out cer- 
tain things required, which, if they were wanting, 
proved it to be vain. In short, he meant to teach 
a most important lesson, which the members of a 
visible Church are always in danger of forgetting, 
that the forms of religion may exist without the 
spirit of it, and that no man has any reason to 
think himself religious who is not virtuous, zealous 
in doing good, careful in avoiding evil. 

When once religion is established in a community, 
it becomes decent, and at times even fashionable, to 
conform to its outward ordinances. Besides, the 
rites of Christianity are simple and not burdensome, 
so that it is not difficult to observe them. Twice 
a-day to repeat our prayers, to attend the Church 
once or twice upon the Sabbath, and at stated sea- 
sons to receive the Sacrament, are works of easy 
performance ; and if the bare performance of them 
constituted the whole of religion, and heaven were 
to be gained at so easy a rate, instead of a strait, it 



So 



Sermon VI. 



■would be a wide gate ; instead of a narrow, it would 
be a broad path that leadeth unto Hfe, whereas from 
the words of Christ we know that it is just the re- 
verse. And yet rehgion, as it is commonly under- 
stood, implies but these things, because in the usual 
acceptation of the word morality is separated from it, 
whereas St. James most evidently includes morality 
in it. He had no notion of a religious man w^ho 
was not also a good man. And wherefore, do you 
suppose, does your faith prescribe, as it is admitted 
that it does prescribe, the performance of these holy 
rites, but to make you better creatures ? What end 
do the means of grace serve, but to advance you in 
goodness, to produce in you and increase in you 
right affections ? in short, to fit you for heaven by 
aiding you to attain those qualifications, without 
which you cannot enter into it. And if these effects 
are not produced by your religious performances, 
they avail no more to your salvation than the taking 
of a medicine can avail to the cure of him upon whom 
it fails to operate. 

It is time, therefore, to call your attention to the 
terms which St. James employs in describing, as I 
before said, the effects of pure and undefiled re- 
ligion," by shewing the sort of conduct which it 
naturally produces. It is this, he says : to visit 
the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to 
keep himself unspotted from the world." Here we 
have two distinct duties ; the first, relating to others, 
that we exert ourselves to relieve the miseries of our 



On Religiofiy pure and undefiled. 8r 

fellow-creatures, and to do them good ; the other, 
that amidst the temptations of the world, we pre- 
serve ourselves pure from its corruptions. As the 
fatherless and widows are commonly the greatest 
objects of compassion, they are selected as the most 
obvious instances of the affliction we are required 
to visit. But, of course, it is as much our duty to 
relieve all other cases of distress as they occur. For 
what can we do for those who have sustained the 
loss of a husband or a father.? We cannot restore 
those for whom they grieve ; but it is the want, the 
destitution, that so often attends this case, which it 
is in our power to relieve. Is he taken away by 
whose toil they were supported in credit and com- 
fort } We may shew that in us God has raised them 
up friends who will not suffer them to need, that 
want be not added to their other griefs. What, then, 
we should do in their case, we are to do in every 
other that admits of relief by the like means. 

Nor let it be too hastily taken for granted, that 
there is little or no misery within our reach, be- 
cause it is not immediately before our eyes. Must 
Lazarus be "laid at our gate, full of sores,'' before 
we can believe that there is such a wretch in exist- 
ence ? Indeed, the reason why we do not see the 
worst sort of distress, is but too shocking. It is 
because it has not the power to come forth, and it 
must be sought out before it can be relieved. But 
that such cases of distress as St. James requires us 
to visit are near our doors, will easily be made to 

G 



82 



Sermon VI. 



appear. Calculate, you who best understand the 
circumstances of the poor, the highest sum which 
a workman in full health can raise by his weekly 
earnings, and w^hat portion of provisions of the 
plainest kind that sum can purchase in times like 
these. Then consider that these are to be divided 
among a family, more or less numerous ; add to 
this that cold and nakedness, as well as hunger, are 
to be provided against. Even this case, which is 
a favourable one, is not, you see, far removed from 
want. Now suppose this man, who barely supports 
himself and his family by his earnings, to become 
sick, or disabled, or not able to find employment, 
(which is an everyday occurrence,) what resource 
has he to meet his numerous wants } Parochial re- 
lief may be obtained, but how insufficient is the 
allowance made in such cases to provide comforts, 
not to say necessaries for a state of poverty and 
sickness pressing together. It may not be proper 
to levy more by compulsion ; the officers of the 
parish will look to that : let them but discharge their 
part conscientiously, as those who must give an ac- 
count of their stewardship to God, and our reflec- 
tions touch not them ; but let them do what they 
can, and be as considerate as they will, there will 
always be left enough and too much for voluntary 
charity. The wife and children of the sick work- 
man will need relief as much as the fatherless and 
the widow. This now is a plain statement of a case 
which in the nature of things is so common, that it 



On Religion, pure and undefiled. S3 

may be said to be often, if not always, within your 
reach ; and it will occur to you that other and worse 
instances than this are but too common, so that the 
opportunity of visiting those in affliction is con- 
stantly afforded to you. Alas ! my brethren, we live 
not in a world where we need look far for misery. 
Death, sickness, and misfortune, are ever prowling 
around us, their victims meet us at every turn, and 
the havoc which they make in human happiness is 
such that charity can never want objects. If, then, 
you have hitherto neglected to add to your faith 
this virtue, rejoice that it is yet in your power to 
make up for the omission. You will not, as we said, 
have far to look for wretches on whom to exercise 
your benevolence. Your feelings, indeed, will be 
shocked and hurt at the sight of misery ; but think 
you those feelings were given you in vain } were 
they not intended, like every other uneasy feeling, 
to excite you to some beneficial action 1 and what 
action is more beneficial than the exercise of mercy, 
which blesseth him that gives and him that takes " ? 
The chamber of disease, the confined room in which 
are crowded together the sickly parent and the crav- 
ing children, where age, and want, and widowhood, 
and helplessness shrink into their miserable retreat, 
are painful scenes, but they are not scenes to which 
we should be strangers, if we profess " religion pure 
and undefiled." " But if we can do no good, why 
should we distress ourselves 1 " Be assured that a 



84 



Sermon VI, 



look of kindness always does good. It must be so, 
for what an aggravation of misery must it be to feel 
ourselves abandoned in it. 

Nor is it only on account of the good w^e can do 
to others that we are commanded to visit the af- 
flicted, but on account of the good that visits such 
as these do to ourselves, the moral effect that scenes 
of affliction are calculated to produce. For why is 
it "better to go to the house of mourning than to 
the house of feasting," but because "by the sadness 
of the countenance the heart is made better." They 
who have never known adversity themselves, nor 
witnessed it in others, are in danger of becoming 
indifferent to their neighbour's good and evil, not 
to say selfish and unfeeling. The heart, gay and 
insolent with its own happiness, needs this correc- 
tive, to witness the miseries of others. And this, 
perhaps, is one reason why the Scripture requires 
us ^^to visit the afflicted," as if it were not sufficient 
to hear of and relieve distress, but we must be eye- 
witnesses of the ills to which our nature is exposed, 
that we may have a proper feeling of them. To 
what other cause, indeed, can we attribute the scanti- 
ness of the alms that are bestowed, so disproportioned 
to m.en's means of being charitable, but to the cir- 
cumstance that their compassion is but half excited, 
because they do not see the miserable objects of it ; 
for what has been said of the scenes of the drama, 
may be said of the real tragedies of life, that the 



On Religion, pure and tmdefiled, 85 



most shocking relation addressed to the ear does 
not touch the heart, Hke the distress that is brought 
before our eyes ^ 

Among the reasons assigned for the permission of 
evil in this world, the best, perhaps, is this, that God 
designs by it to afford us an opportunity of exer- 
cising those virtues which could not be practised if 
all were happiness. Thus, if there were no want, no 
misery, there could be no bounty, no pity, no self- 
denial for the sake of others ; but now the distresses 
that befall our brethren are a part of our trial, and 
summon us to duties, which, if we neglect, we can- 
not escape condemnation. 

When, therefore, I said that men's charity was 
disproportioned to their means of being charitable, 
I remarked upon a sad and serious fault, though, it 
is to be feared, a very common one. Those, indeed* 
who have had to solicit charity for others, can tell 
how common it is ; how men, who wish to pass for 
persons of substance and credit, find suddenly that 
they have very little which they do not want for 
themselves ; how those who can indulge every vain 
or extravagant wish in themselves or their children, 
cannot afford to bestow the meanest alms. Now, 
how can such persons hope to escape the awful sen- 
tence which our Lord declares He will pass at the 
last day on the uncharitable in such terms as these. 

Depart from Me, ye cursed, &c." For I was 

" Segnius irritant aiiimos demissa per aurem, 
Quam quaa sunt oculis subjecta fidelibus." — Hor. 



86 



Sermo7i VI. 



hungry, and ye gave Me no meat ; thirsty, and ye 
gave Me no drink ; naked, and ye clothed Me not ; 
sick, and in prison, and ye visited Me not. For 
inasmuch as ye did it not to the least of these 
l\Iy brethren, ye did it not unto Me/' You see 
by these words, these terrible words of our Saviour, 
that He will make the discharge of this duty a 
personal matter between you and Himself, so that 
whatever be your other good qualities, though 
you may be honest and upright and sober and 
steady, and regular in your acts of devotion, (for 
we must not call it religion,) if you never visit 
nor relieve the afflicted, you cannot escape con- 
demnation. 

But you will say, There is surely some limit to 
this duty ; we cannot give, if we have not to spare." 
If, indeed, you had nothing beyond meat and drink 
and clothing, this excuse might be available. For 
these only the Scripture teaches us to consider as 
necessaries ; and though the goodness of God gives 
more to most of us, it is with an accompanying 
obligation to impart of our superfluity to those that 
need. By a little frugal management, and by self- 
denial, there are few who cannot spare something 
to the necessities of their fellow-creatures. If they 
were somewhat less expensive in their dress, in their 
tables, in the furniture of their houses ; if they gave 
up a few of those numberless indulgences, which 
they can always afford to themselves, it would be 
no very severe sacrifice ; and it is a sacrifice un- 



On Religioiiy pure and M7idefiled. 87 



doubtedly which is demanded by Religion, pure 
and undefiled." 

But there is a limit to this duty, and St. Paul has 
given us a rule for the proportion in which we ought 
to bestow. " On the first day of the week, let every 
one of you lay by him in store, as God has pros- 
pered him," so that your gratitude to heaven should 
be the measure of your charity. Now God has 
blessed some with affluent circumstances from the 
first, some with success in their trade, with large 
profits in their business, some with prosperous turns 
of fortune, some with comfortable independence. All 
such have more than a sufficiency of this world's 
goods, and are enabled, more or less, from time to 
time, to clothe the naked, feed the hungry, send por- 
tions to the sick. This they testify of themselves by 
the very appearance they make ; nor would they be 
justified in making this appearance, if they could not 
afi"ord, and if they did not actually afford, to be cha- 
ritable in the same proportion as that appearance is 
respectable. For be assured, my Christian brethren, 
if your mode of living interferes with the discharge 
of this, or indeed of any other Christian duty, it is so 
far sinful and offensive to God. 

Brethren, I feel that this subject is inexhaustible ; 
let me hope that enough has been said to make you 
think more seriously of that part of religion which 
consists in visiting the afflicted, and my persuasion 
is, that if you think of it more seriously, you will 
perform it more abundantly, to the satisfaction of 



88 



Sermon VI. 



your own souls no less than to the benefit of those 
whom Christ deigns to call His brethren. 

That we may not, however, preach " religion pure 
and undefiled" partially, that branch of it is yet to 
be considered which consists in keeping ourselves 
''unspotted from the world." What is this world, 
my brethren, of which the Scripture here and else- 
where speaks in terms of such severity ? There are 
some interpreters who would fain persuade us, that 
as the w^orld in the time of the Apostles consisted 
chiefly of heathens, it must be the heathen world of 
which they speak, and that therefore their cautions 
against worldly-mindedness concern not us Chris- 
tians. This is an opinion so false and so pernicious, 
that if it should prevail, hell would enlarge her bor- 
ders. It is well for us that it has not as yet pre- 
vailed. At present, we teach our children, in the 
first religious lessons we give them, that they are 
bound by their Baptismal vows ''to renounce the 
pomps and vanities of this wicked world and as- 
suredly they are in no danger of being corrupted 
by the heathen world, we therefore still afiix some 
other sense to it. And, indeed, when the Apostle 
describes the world against which he inveighs, he 
describes it by marks which apply as well to the 
world in which we live as they could have done to 
the heathen. For w^hich of the vices that are im- 
puted to them is banished from our world ? Is it 
adultery ? look to your public journals ? Is it for- 
nication ^ what mean, then, your troops of profli- 



On Religion^ pure and nndefiled. 



89 



gate men and of abandoned women, that swarm in 
all your towns and villages ? Is it drunkenness ? 
Whence, then, are those shameful exposures in your 
streets, the roar and riot that issue from your public- 
houses, now multiplied beyond all example ? Is it 
covetousness ? why, then, is gain so generally, so 
eagerly, so unscrupulously made the object of all 
your dealings ? The prevalence of these things it 
would be ignorance to doubt. *^The world, there- 
fore, still lieth in wickedness." It is not yet an un- 
necessary lesson "to keep ourselves unspotted from 
the world." All that our Saviour, all that His 
Apostles testified of the world, is true of that in 
which we live, and by consequence all their warn- 
ings against it, their directions to renounce, to over- 
come, to crucify it, are in full force. But to declaim 
against the world in the abstract may seem the part 
of an enthusiast, we must be more particular. It is 
from the wickedness of the world that arises our 
danger, and the necessity of keeping ourselves un- 
spotted from it, by which expression St. James, with 
admirable judgment, limits a duty which might have 
been carried to an excess injurious to society. For 
it does not bid us "go out of the world," but flee 
from its corruptions, consistently with our Saviour's 
prayer for His disciples, " I pray not that Thou 
shouldst take them out of the world, but that Thou 
shouldst keep them from the evil." We may ob- 
serve, therefore, that they do not keep themselves 
unspotted from the world who are swayed by its 



90 



Sermon VI. 



maxims more than by the fear of God ; nor they 
who have learnt from it to think more of their in- 
terests and their pleasures than of their duties ; nor 
they whose time it engrosses, whether by its cares 
or its amusements, till "the one thing needful" is 
shut out from their consideration ; least of all, they 
whom it has made vain, voluptuous, and loose, whom 
it has taught to disrelish everything that is serious, 
whom it has incapacitated for the pursuit of " glory, 
honour, and immortality," whom it has reconciled to 
corrupt practices and popular vices. They who can 
commit wickedness without a sense of its guilt, and 
find an excuse in its fashionableness for every con- 
formity to its modes, however wrong, they are the 
slaves of the world, and they must perish with the 
world. 

But do you, my brethren, desire to keep yourselves 
unspotted from, it } Then, as you must sometimes 
mix with it, let it be with caution, with a fearful ap- 
prehension of its dangers, its seductions, its defile- 
ments, — you perceive that "the majority are wicked," 
fear to make one of them. There may be those so 
strong in Christian principle, that they can enter 
freely into it and not be corrupted, — as there are 
constitutions that can breathe the air of a pest-house 
without taking the infection. But the general rule 
is the only safe one, "Be not conformed to this 
world." Imitate the caution of those who never 
enter the chamber of disease without preservatives 
against contagion. Never mix with the world with- 



On Religion^ pure and imdefiled. 



91 



out taking precautions against the moral pestilence 
of its widely-spread corruptions. 

To sum up the whole, it seems that there are two 
duties which, briefly expressed, are charity and self- 
denial, that must be practised, in a much greater de- 
gree than they are generally practised, in order to 
salvation ; that religious ordinances without these are 
not religion, they can never be accepted as a sub- 
stitute for other duties. "These should you have 
done, and not have left the other undone." It will 
be the condemnation of many at the last day, may 
it not be yours ! that although they have observed 
all the forms of godliness, they have wanted the 
essence of "religion, pure and undefiled," because 
they have not visited the afflicted, and " kept them- 
selves unspotted from the world." 




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